


Ghosts

by I_Reflect_The_Sun



Category: GOT7, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alot of people are mentioned briefly, Angst, Anxiety, Bambam is so damn sad, But not really because the age of consent fluxuates based on country and in korea its only 13, Child Abuse, Consential Platonic Underage Relationship, Domestic Violence, Forgive Me, Grief, Grieving, Heavier elements appear later in the story, Intense, Joshua doesnt show up til chapter 8, Joshua is so pure, Lots of words, M/M, Pain, Protecc, Sadness, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, also i mis-named bams cat sooooo, be careful, my head is twisted, realistic relationships (I think), trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-04-20 04:40:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14253216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Reflect_The_Sun/pseuds/I_Reflect_The_Sun
Summary: Bambam is lost without Mark. Mark was his rock, his anxious, shy , sweet rock, the one who was there for him and who put up with all his teen hormonal bullshit. He was there when his best friend left, he was there when he graduated, when he went to prom and when he got into college, but now he is gone. It hurts to be without him. He can't breathe.Joshua has been sheltered much of his life, protected by his Christian parents and given a good outlook on life, or at least they thought so. He has seen alcohol use, abuse, people in bad situations, many things his parents never realized he had seen, but he came to Seoul for college, hoping that things might be better. They are, for a little while, but nothing stays that way.(Sorry for the bad summery, my normal writing is better :P)(Also please be careful I'm used to reading alot of this so some things might disturb you or trigger you. If they do, I am very very sorry.)





	1. Hes gone

**Author's Note:**

> Criticize as much as you like, hit me with your best shot!
> 
> Also
> 
> Enjoy pain

Bambam never liked the idea of ghosts.

Who would like the idea of your loved ones following you, standing right next to you without being able to touch them or hold them, seeing their face yet not being able to get close. But those aren't the only ghosts he didn’t like. 

Memories are like ghosts, they stick around, intangible yet beautiful in their elusive nature. 

Some people don't make memories, their lives were made to forget the world and live day by day. That’s his friend Youngjae, his little laughing buddy, with the world's brightest smile and the world at his finger tips. He lives in the now, dances in the night when he wants to, sings and writes and pays no heed to the past and its beautiful discrepancies. He forgets everything-- appointments, jokes, to get up some mornings, what type of coffee he likes and where he puts his keys every day. It's not that he means to forget, but his head is full to the brim with ideas and thoughts that don’t pay the past any attention. Why remember where you put your keys when you can think about how beautiful the sun is, or smell the winds of spring pushing in? He says lots of things like that. Poetic. He really is. And forgetful, but the world can forgive such an artist for his shortcomings.

Some people have memories, but don’t pay attention to them, don’t care about their warnings or what they have to offer. One of those people is his friend Jackson. He's beautiful, the world pay attention to him and the words he says, the sky brightens for him and his smile. He lives his life how he wants, does the same stupid things over and over again , expecting a different result and never getting it. He drinks himself to oblivion on whatever alcohol he has Thursday night and expects a different result the next morning, but he never gets it. He gets pain behind his dark eyes, sticky skin and the reek of alcohol on his tongue. And then he tries something new the next week, only for the same result. Bambam calls it insanity. It's one of the reasons he loves his Chinese buddy so much. 

Some people have memories, and they dwell on them so much it hurts. They think of their mistakes, their pain, the things that have filled their lives so far and for some it causes them anxiety. He loves one of those people. He loves Mark. It's a miracle his hyung functions at all, he gets that lost in his head, in the worries and the possibilities of what could go wrong. Thing is, most don’t notice. Bambam didn’t notice for a very long time, he just watched how calm Mark seemed, didn’t notice his cautious eyes and bitten nails, or the way he seemed to cling to his side in social situations. It took just a little longer for him to learn how to help with his anxieties, and he would do almost anything. Kiss his forehead during stressful nights, hold his hand and offer quiet comforts in social situations, make him laugh before bed so he sleeps well. He would do anything for Mark. 

Maybe that’s why its so hard to live with his ghost. 

Bambam never liked living with ghosts

The first one he lived with was his father. He died when Bambam was young, when he was only just getting a handle on the world and how it worked. He dad would wake him in the mornings, stroke his hair and then send him off to brush his teeth and get dressed. Once he was gone, he could feel the way he shook him from his death, the way he no longer kissed his forehead but ruffled his messy hair as a wave to the day. He soon started waking up on his own, and soon his father faded. He likes remembering his smile. 

The second was not a person but his cat, who had such a strong presence through his teen years. He died a few weeks before he met Mark, his poor baby being hit by a girl on a bike and loosing his life with the way his neck bent. She came to him, crying, snot on her face with her tears and kept sobbing about how she wouldn’t wake up. He didn’t cry right away, he couldn't, he just took his poor angel and helped the girl dry her tears, told her that everything was okay and sent her off with a soft smile on his lips. Once he shut the door to his home, though, he broke down, he slid down the wooden door with a sob and cried to his poor baby for hours. He kept refilling the water when it evaporated for weeks after that. He didn’t take down the cat tower in his home. He would hug his pillow and wish that his little baby were back, but she never did come back. He still misses her. 

The third ghost to haunt him was one of his friends, a boy named Jungkook, one who lived with him at the time of his cats passing, and in the beginnings of his friendship with Mark. Jungkook was a kind boy, he had a sweet smile and they got along well, stuck with one another through the early years of their lives and into their teens, until the other boy left. He up and disappeared, walked out of their apartment with a letter for Bambam on the kitchen counter, a sad tone to the note. He doesn’t think he did very well without him, especially without his family and friends there. He had little of either in the area at the time. Maybe it was the memory of Jungkook that drove him to Marks side, to cling to him and let himself be taken care of.

Mark is the only ghost he has ever had that hurt him this much. He loved the others, no one can tell him he didn't, but it's not the same and he isn't sure how much people get that. Four years of his life given to one man, someone who took care of him when he didn't feel right, and who he took care of in turn. Four years of dependence and love, and only two where it was legal. Before that, people thought they were buddies, roomies, that they were best friends. Mark waited to kiss him until he turned 18, and even a few weeks after that, but they were in love long before then, showed it in other ways. Forehead kisses, cuddles, food and movie nights, and the only thing that changed when he grew up was the smile on his lips while he was kissed and the hight he had. They never did kiss much. Mark was to nervous about being clingy and overbearing, or pushing Bambam. Bambam didn't really think about it, and stuck to their prior behavior. They stuck together. It was nice to be with Mark. 

It hurts to be with Marks ghost.

Bambam misses Mark with his whole body, with his soul, every muscle in his body attuned to having his hyung right there, right by his side. He still wakes up and makes two cups of coffee instead of one, still opens his eyes when he can't find the warmth in his bed. It's so cold without him in it. He misses how his hyung would purposely mess up his hair, how he would steal mocha from him randomly and cuddle her, how he would only eat the green gummies from the fruit snacks when they got them, how he would wake him in the night when he had nightmares, tears on his cheeks and worry in his eyes as to whether Bambam would be mad. He never was. He rarely got mad at Mark, because he rarely did anything that made him upset. It took him a long time to figure out that that was intentional, but not very much time to tell his hyung to let him know if he does things that bother him. 

Maybe he misses his hyung so much because they became one force, one existence together. All their things were side by side, everything done in twos so the both were taken care of. They had their own friends, their own interests, they were still individuals, but they worked together the way a couple should. The red haired boy wrote his worries down, he rapped and studied and did the dishes. Bambam danced, and sung, took care of his plants and animals well, took out the trash. They hugged one another, alternated who was the big spoon, surprise hugs and comforting ones, silly giggles mixed with wrestling that turned to tired arms around one another.

He can practically feel it all still. He can feel Mark kissing his forehead when he takes out the trash, he can hear whispers reminding him to grab his key and check his bank account. He still writes where he is on their little whiteboard by the door, reaches over to wake Mark in the mornings. But there is no one there when he whispers morning, no one there as he searches frantically to see if his hyung is having a panic attack, no one there as he suffers from new found anxieties of his own in a bed that still smells like Mark. He didn’t have anxieties until after Mark was gone. Now he has them in the mornings, when he sees a head of hair too red, or when he feels arms around him from behind, because he thinks its mark and then thinks it isn't. Both thoughts drive him insane.

Maybe Jackson isn't the insane one. Maybe Bambam is, seeing his ghosts.

He still talks himself to sleep at night like Mark is there to hear him. He wakes up, and hears noises in his kitchen, thinking its his hyung and then its not. He sees his beautiful face in the morning when he brushed his teeth, he wants to feel the foamy toothpaste kisses on his neck or cheek or forehead, but he doesn't, he feels warmth against his back at night when he falls asleep. It's gone when he awakens, and lives another day without the red haired boy. 

He misses his deep voice.

He misses his warm hands.

He misses the whispered thanks over coffee and the shrieks of laughter when he ticked his narrow stomach.

Look, he's crying again, big fat tears dripping down his cheeks and onto his psychology notes, splattering on the paper. His lips shake. Tear filled eyes shut hard, opening up a world of darkness that invited his ghost to cup his cheeks, brush at tears that don’t leave and they blink open again. He wants his Mark back. 

It takes a long time for his class to end. It takes a short time to get home, a short walk that takes longer when he sits down on the same park bench and cries into his hands, remembering how he and Mark would talk of their futures on the way home from university. The jogger woman with her dark ponytail runs by. He doesn’t see her sympathetic eyes, his world filled with darkness and the choking warmth of his sweater, a soft one Mark gave him as a six month anniversary present along with a crown of flowers and a night of Disney. It takes a long time for him to stop, his cheeks streaked in tears as he picks up his big black backpack again and trudges home, limbs heavy and eyes swimming with left over tears. His face is red and blotchy, his palms sore from being pressed against his face too hard, and when he gets to the white door, he presses his forehead to it instead of pulling on the handle. The soft crinkle of paper accompanies the action-- the little piece of paper that he and Mark had put up so long ago and replaced several times. 

'Markie and lil Bam'. 

He kisses the paper and walks in, writing on his little whiteboard, on the section that is his. Marks side still has one neat word. 'School'. His own says home. He knows Mark isn't at school anymore. He hasn’t been for a while. 

There's a soft shuffle as he takes off his shoes, puts them by his red haired hyungs own and stares at them, down at his own black socks, down to the tile below them. The cold can be felt through the dark fabric as the bag is set down. Marks bag is still there, packed just the way he always liked it. 

He walks across his home, keys going on the hook next to where Marks should be, wandering past the piles of paper on the table, hundreds and hundreds of pages of Marks handwriting, filled with English and Chinese and Korean, ever scientific medical term he can think of, every medication. He has read over the notes, and wondered if any of them would solve the pain he feels. It's been 8 months, and he still cant think about him without his heart hurting. He doesn’t have homework. It's a blessing.

A soft purple comforter meets his body as he falls into bed, his only sanctuary from the pain, his only escape. He presses his face into the pillow, the room, the home smelling like Mark still, somehow. He loves it. It makes him cry, but he loves it, loves that every article in one of the dressers smells like him, loves that he can still press his face into his hyungs red tinted pillow and smell him. Not his cologne, but him. His skin, his hair, /him/. His face is moved to his own pillow and he cries. He wants Mark back. He falls asleep like that, his face pressed to a wet, salty pillow.

He thinks he feels Marks ghost press against his side. When he wakes, there is nothing but the soft moonlight coming in through his window, and an empty place next to him.

He can't breathe.


	2. Chapter 2 (no more titles for anyone :P)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not giving you a summary of this, just here to alert the world of possible trigger warnings
> 
> There will be death, angst, sadness, crying, and a traumatic experience. Please be careful when reading

Bambam tries his best not to remember the day him Mark left him. 

It was a really, really hard day. It was a scary day. But mostly, it was a painful day.

He remembers that morning. Mark woke up before him, but like always, he lays there until the alarm went off and Bambam blinked his eyes open. The slight of those dark eyes peaking at him from over the edge of his pillow has him giggling, that head of messy hair sticking up in some spots. "Guess who," the red head whispers, ducking down under the edge of the pillow to hide himself, but his hair is still standing up. He wonders how long his hyung has been awake, but doesn’t ask. Instead of responding, he reaches out to spread his fingers onto the pillow, pushing it down until he sees Marks giggling face and toothy smile, and suddenly he moves forwards, stealing a kiss to the other boys shoulder as he shrieks with laughter. 

Bambam ends up with his body wrapped around Marks slim frame, arms and legs pinning the other to the bed as they giggle quietly to one another, kisses being pressed across his cheeks repeatedly. It's a normal morning, the kind that he misses dearly and wishes desperately for each time he wakes up. 

"Bam, come on, I need my caffeine fix," the smaller boy whines softly, wiggling around in his hold, his soft nose brushing against the raven haired boys cheek. It takes several more whines before the younger lets him go, crawling out after the other and kissing the back of his head before padding quietly to the kitchen, already putting the coffee on for the both of them. He soon joins Mark in the bathroom, heading to brush his teeth next to the elder and noticing the tense nature of his shoulders. 

Right, Mark has a test today. Ten percent of his grade will be dictated by it. He thinks for a moment, continuing to brush his teeth and build mint flavored foam up, and then he leans over, taking the red heads face in his hands and peppering two, three, four, five little minty kisses on his skin, lip prints outlined on his face and leaving him a cute, giggling mess. His shoulders aren't as tense after that.

They go through their morning like usual, face masks before coffee, two cups, each with a different amount of sugar in a different colored mug, makeup applied on one another with practiced care, just bb cream and eyeliner. It makes them both feel more confident in public. 

Dressed and fresh, they scoot around their home and the out the door, with long sleeves and clean socks, matching bangs over their eyebrows and matching messenger bags on their shoulders, the same word written on their little board by the door. 'School' in two sets of handwriting. The 'o's are hearts in the elder boys, and Bambam steals a kiss to calm the others already reoccurring nerves before he takes his hand and they set off, the door getting locked. 

It's a cool mo rning, warranting the sleeves that cover both of their arms and the long jeans they both wear. The younger is in a shirt that he stole from Mark long ago, but his hyung doesn’t mind when he steals clothes anymore. The park comes and goes, little birds in the trees, purple flowers lining the path, their color a deep saturated violet beneath a greying sky. He's glad the other always has an umbrella in case it rains. Mark is always prepared. It's because of his anxieties, he supposes, but he loves him for it, for both things. He loves all of Mark. His eyes never leave his tan face and soft little smile as they walk, and even though he almost trips as a result, the giggle he earns for his silliness is worth it. 

"You're gonna do well, I know it, kay Markie? I'll see you right after," Bambam whispers to the other, pushing soft red hair back and kissing his forehead gently. His hyung whispers a 'See ya' back, and starts to walk away, but Bambam grabs his wrist and steals a quick kiss to his lips. At the time, he didn’t know it would be his final goodbye. He's glad the last words he says in person to his hyung, his angel, the love of his life, are "Sorry, last one. I love you." He knows people who have lost loved ones and wish they had that chance. He knows how lucky he is for that, but it will never be enough. Nothing will ever be enough without Mark.

In another few seconds he gets an, "I love you Bam," and then the Thai male is running across campus to his own class, psychology. He still has that same class almost a year later, only instead of AP psych one, it's AP psych two. His teacher has been kind sense it happened. She knows what he has been through.

She knows how badly he is hurt.

Maybe it’s the fact that she is trained in psychology.

Or maybe its because she was there when his world shattered. 

It starts with a beep over the loud speaker. A familiar voice, deep and loud comes on. "We are in a lockdown, there is an individual possessing firearms on the premises, " it crackles, "Please, cover all your windows, lock your doors and get away from the entrances. This is not a drill." The class sits still for a moment before his teacher jumps up to do as she is told, her purple jacket held closed by one hand before she lets it go to lock the door. Another student-- he later learned that it was Youngjae-- pulls down the blinds to the big windows in the room, taping them down, casting the once semi-bright room into a sinking dark. People get down in their chairs, under the little pews-- if that’s even what you call them-- and get quiet, whispering small worries to themselves. 

"Oh god, oh god-"

"Shit, what about Gyeom?"

"Oh fuck me." "Maybe another time."

It's weird that people can be wise asses when there's someone on campus, someone armed and dangerous.

"Unnie, hold me."

"I don’t wanna die."

"Mark hyung." It's a whisper, softer than many of the others.

It's his whisper. He rips out his phone, whacking his elbow against the metal frames of the chairs anchored to the floor with a painfully loud noise seconds before it vibrates. The name on its screen is the one he just whispered, and he picks it up. 

"Bam-"

"You're okay Mark, you're safe, you will be okay. I love you," he whispers into the phone before Mark is even finished gasping his name. His go to, the thing he whispers when the shorter male panics, the thing that makes him feel safer. It does little to calm the quiet yet erratic breathing on the other end.

"Bammie, I'm scared," he hears from the other end, a tremulous little voice, but it's not edging on panic. It's pure fear, Mark isn't nervous he's scared, and the sound of that in his voice hurts his heart.

He takes a deep breath, calming his own voice and then replying. "Im right here. Just listen to me. Breathe, write, do whatever you need. It's going to be okay." He shifts to sit up, his head still hidden below the chair now to his back, legs pressed to the fold up bottom of the one in front.

"He's outside. I hear him, Bambam-ah. He's right there." He deep inhale, stifled by what must be a hand over his hyungs mouth. "Angel, he's right there." There's almost dead silence behind his voice, only faint mutters from the other line, and the mutters are louder on his end. 

"Oh god, Markie breathe for me please."

"I cant-"

"For me. Get away from the door, as far as you can."

"Okay…okay, yeah."

There's shuffling, movement, but what he doesn’t know is that the sniffles he hears behind the soft noise isn't Mark passing someone on the way away from the door. It's his hyung, his angel, crawling past a girl who is crying and sniffling, and getting between her and the door. He doesn’t know. If he knew he would have started crying sooner.

"Everything is going to be okay," he whispers, voice shockingly calm, "I love you, you're going to be okay."

Mark wasn’t okay. 

"You're okay Bambam. You're safe. You will be okay. I love you." It's a cruel twist of fate, the very words that Bambam had said a meer moment ago. He wishes it was him who ended up shot. The phone is pressed to fabric, he thinks thats what that sounds , and a crash sounds on the other end of the line, then a muted gunshot. A single scream can be heard, high pitched and scared. It isn't Marks. 

It was outside the door, and then there's another one. He doesn't know who it hits. Now he knows it hit the door. He can't move, can't speak, he just hears Mark crying quietly on the other end. The only thing he can possibly wish for is to hold his hyung and whisper that he is okay. 

Now he knows who was shot. Who died. The teacher, a petite woman with short dark hair, and two students. A dark haired boy named Hakyeon, who he has been told had a beautiful smile and a great sense of humor, and a red head with anxieties and a heart that no longer beats. Mark. His Mark. He heard him die, heard one shot and a sound of immense pain in Marks voice, high pitched, the clattering of the phone to the floor. There is a scream, a thump and wheezing after the third. He screams for his hyung, so loud in the silence on his end of the phone, a heart breaking scream.

The scream of someone who just lost everything.

The scream of someone in more pain that can possibly be imagined. 

Everything is on autopilot, he isn't thinking as he stands up abruptly, skitters to the door and unlocks it with shaking hands, running into the open halls and out of the building, to get to the one where Mark is, all the way across campus. A police officer stops him and grabs his shaking arms, and he doesn’t fight, he just screams for his hyung and starts to choke on his breaths. He doesn’t cry, he just lets out empty choked noises, pain filled ones. In minutes he throws up into a bush, wrenching and begging to no one to let Mark be okay, but he knows the scream he heard over the others. He knows it wasn’t in fear--it was in pain. He doesn’t want Mark to die.

But life is funny like that. It takes things from you. It hurts you.

It hurt Mark.

He can't vomit anymore after a few minutes, continuing to dry retch into that poor bush. His body hurts. His chest hurts. He can't breathe, can't think, can't even move until the police officer comes over to help him up. He wipes the vomit from his chin with a napkin and holds his hand as one last gunshot rings.

It's fifteen minutes before they wheel Mark out. Stumbling over, he can't even breathe properly anymore, because he knows the dark red strands that peak out of the top of the sheet. "Markie hyung," he croaks. He's dead, they tell him, he died almost ten minutes ago. He lost too much blood to survive. 

Bambam asks to see him, and when they see how much of a mess he is from the stress he's under, they take pity and show him Mark, just his head and shoulders. He cups his face with trembling fingers. His cheeks are still warm. He whispers how he can't leave him. Who will do the dishes? Who will give him toothpaste kisses? Who will tell him he's being silly? Who will wake him in the night to as for help in calming his own worries? He can't stop talking, whispering how he needs his Mark to come back, to open those pretty eyes and kiss him one more time. To kiss him again and again and again.

His pleas fall on sympathetic ears. They are ignored by the one he needs to hear them most, because the dead can't listen. You can't expect a response from dead ears.

When he opens his eyes to see his Mark not responding, he sheds tears and steps back, falling to his knees. They throb, but he doesn’t care. "Please don’t leave," he whispers as his sunshine, the light of his life, his first love is wheeled away. 

His head bows and he sobs against the concrete like it will come up and wipe his tears. 

But he doesn’t want them to be wiped by concrete, or a police officer, or even his friends. 

He wants Mark to wipe his tears.

He wants Mark to smile and say he loves him again.

He wants Mark. 

But life is cruel to him.


	3. Chapter 3

It takes three days for Bambam to drink anything again.

He doesn’t know how he got home after that day. He could have stumbled home with bruised knees and earned stares from strangers. He could have been guided home by the police officer-- he did say he would try to help in whatever way he could. Hyunwoo was his name. He would have trusted him to get this broken boy home. Maybe one of his friends brought him to the second little white house on their street and he told them to let him be. He doesn’t know which it is.

He doesn’t care.

Bambam may not remember coming home that night, but he certainly remembers everything after he was in his home. 

Two steps in, and his hands shake with the sweet smell of Mark and his cologne.

Three and he finds his hyungs shoes by where he kicked his own off, tears in his eyes where they havent fallen yet, where they weren't before. There are no gentle hands there to wipe them away and whisper, 'Don’t worry. It's okay to cry.' 

But it isn't, Mark hyung, it isn't because you are not here to wipe them.

His hands cover his eyes now, and every step after is a stumble through his home. Through countless memories, through his shattered world, through a world where he should have Mark by his side but his hyung is gone. 

He's gone.

He left.

The dark haired boy finds his way to his bed, and he falls into it. There are no tears for now as he grabs the purple comforter, and wraps his skinny body in it, the overwhelming scent of Mark everywhere. He doesn’t sleep that night, he just keeps his nose burried in that fabric, staring at his sweet angels window. There is a picture by it, but by the time he does lift the top half of his face out of that blanket, it's too dark for him to see it. He's glad, because it was such a beautiful picture, and he doesn’t think he could take it. 

It was a fairly basic picture; him and Mark, himself on the others back, grinning like a child and looking like one too-- he was only 17 in that photo. The thing that he loved most about it was that it wasn’t perfect. His hair was a mess, a streak of pink right in his bangs, no make up. At the time he had a break out. Mark had smudged eyeliner, his shirt was so big it was swimming around him, his little gold cross pulled up weirdly from the thin arms around his neck. It looked awkward, it looked poorly done, but it was real. There was real joy, real happiness and the feeling of love from it. It was pure, unbridled Mark and Bambam, and that’s why they both loved it so much. Why he can't look at it now. Why he has to look at it every night before bed, to feel the stirring in his chest, and then the pain. 

That night, he didn’t see it. Instead he saw their tree, the one where he first asked Mark out. The one where he was kissed so sweetly for the first time by a boy with blond dyed hair. The one where the both of them would stare up at the sky and wonder about the future, where they cracked jokes so hard that one time the younger fell and sprained his wrist to the sound of screeching laugher and then screeching worry. As he stared at it that night, he could practically see all of it happening, the talking, the jokes, the kisses and late nights and the way he planned to propose under that tree, and that’s why his tears fell. His tears don’t come with sobs or broken breaths now, but a quiet, eerie stillness. They fall into a pillow that smells of Mark and a hint of hair dye. 

He looked so beautiful with red hair.

He looked so beautiful with a smile.

Even in death, he looked stunning.

He died scared. He died alone, and he later learned, he died a hero to protect a girl he barely knew. He had been close to the doors to begin with, and even as he cried in fear, he put her life before his. 

He died for someone else.

He died without Bambam to hold him and soothe his fears, wipe his tears and whisper a final goodbye. 

It takes four days for him to take care of himself again.

On day three he sips from the glass of water that he always brings with him to bed. It's usually not for him, it's for Mark, always to stubborn to bring one to bed only to ask for a couple sips in the minutes after they curl up under the covers. He takes the glass, one that Mark brought when he first moved in, and he sips it from his spot, curled up in the covers like a little baby. 

The next day he gets up, walking through his home with trembling lips, seeing Mark in every corner, every crevice and piece of furniture. Nothing about that home would change in the next 8 months. He wanders through his own home, and he feels like a stranger in the cold of the night, the house seemingly not his own without Mark by his side. Bambam likes to think he isn't dependent on others, but that is so far from the truth. He relies on others a lot, but in the little ways-- the warmth of a presence at his side, the sound of breathing mixed with his own, the shuffle of clothes over skin. He doesn’t even need interactions most of the time. It's now, in the cold oppressive dark of a home that doesn’t feel like his anymore, that he misses Mark more than anything. 

He has delt with losses in the past, he has lost people and loved ones, seen people leave him for others time and time again, but Mark never did that. He strayed, once, when he needed a little space after the loss of his aunt, but Bambam strayed as well to follow him. They were there for eachother, dependent yet independent as well, a great couple many said.

Yet here Bambam is, ready to cry as he slowly wanders through his home towards the bathroom, the second half of his couple gone. 

He gets to his destination, tears in his eyes, and the room is too cold. Too empty. It doesn’t have a red haired boy with it, looking into the mirror nervously after a nightmare, washing his face in the middle of the night because it felt gross to him, waking up in the morning to brush his teeth. It's empty and cold. No matter how hot he turns everything up, nothing will ever be warm enough again.

The shower is turned on, a freezing cold stream of water that soon turns to scalding, the thin boned male slipping in and letting the heat turn his skin an angry pink. He scrubs away the memories. Well, that was his intention. Instead, angry pink turns to red on his hands, scrubbing at them until they are almost bleeding. Then soft black hair is scrubbed, more gently, but strands still fall into the drain more often than normal. 

Suds gather at his feet and soon the Thai male is just standing in a stream of now freezing water, shivering, and thinking of how cold Mark must be right now. Who has his body? Will he have to go identify him? The water is turned off, the suds run down the drain and then he sits, shivering, at the bottom of the shower, right under the shower head. Soft drips fall from his bangs and roll down his bare legs. There are occasional drops that fall onto his head, freezing and sudden. The sun rises before he moves again, body now dry, still shivering as soft rays of sun fall in through the little window. It's a new day.

It's another day after a part of him died.

A part of who he is died when Mark did. A part of his happiness, most of it, is gone for now. It might grow back with a new piece of his life, but for now it is dead, a shivering empty pit in his body. His anger has died too, because much of it was in protection of his Mark, in his defense. He just feels sad and scared, scared of how to live the rest of his life without his hyung. How do you move on after something like this? Bambam doesn’t see how he possibly could. How he can.

Shaking fingers grab the shelf on the wall, pulling his thin body up and getting himself dressed in anything but the clothes he wore that day. The hamper is half full, and he finds some shorts and a big sweater that were both his hyungs. 

He crawls into bed with a bigger glass of water and the determination to let himself die.

He has nothing to live for.

What is life without his love.

Jaebum comes by after 5 days. Five days of knocks at the door without any reply, five days of determination to let himself die, five days without looking at his phone, charging at his bed side. The screen saver is a picture of his hyung, asleep in bed, hair tousled and drool at the corner of his lips in the middle of the day. Jackson sent it to him while he was away in Bangkok for his sisters wedding. Mark really couldn’t stand to be alone when he slept, so the other offered, and it was accepted happily.

Jaebum waits a few minutes after knocking before he unlocks the door. The house is mostly untouched, utterly empty of the usual snores or giggles, just the sound of his dog walking around and his cats sleeping. Bambam fed them at some point, but he doesn’t remember it.

He crawls into bed with Bambam, and just lays by his side, not touching but not too far. It's what the elder deems just right. It's what Bambam deems completely wrong. 

"I miss him," he whispers after a while, he doesn’t know if it's been ten minutes or an hour, into the mattress, into something that he and Mark have slept on together for four years.

"I know, I'm sorry."

"I didn’t think love could hurt me so much."

Arms are looped around shaking shoulders, pulling the thin male close, into the first hug he has had sense that day. He doesn’t want it, it's not Marks skinny arms around him, not his smell nor the same soothing heat he gives off. He wants to get out, but somewhere in his heart he knows he needs this. His eyes are burried in Jaebum's soft sweatshirt, and he cries his heart out again and again. It takes two days for the elder to be convinced to leave.

It takes eleven days for Bambam to eat again, and brush his dark hair. 

He decides not to die after eleven days. After Jaebum comes and goes he does things. He doesn’t eat, but he goes to the coroners office to confirm its his beautiful Mark laying on the table, so cold and alone. He left him for so long. His poor hyung, all alone and anxious here. 

He cries for the life lost, for his Mark, for the whole world he held at his finger tips, but mostly, he cries for himself. For his loss. He cries because he doesn’t know how to go on. One week after he was shot, and Bambam still waits to die, to join him. To be with the love of his life once more. The people there take pity on him, let him have some time alone with his Mark. He takes his hand, carefully, like it might break if he touches it too hard, and intertwines their fingers one last time, kisses his knuckles, like he is sending him off. He doesn’t kiss his lips. That isn't right-- Mark isn't there to smile and say that his kisses are okay anymore. He has no right to touch their lips together. The sheet is kept over his hyungs chest, knowing how self conscious the other was about being shirtless around others.

Now he's so exposed, in such a cold room, waiting for his parents to finish planning the funeral. He plans to help them out once he is done here, but for now he cries by his sweet Marks side and holds his hand. He always has had such pretty hands.

Even now, in death, he still looks like an angel. 

After a few days of planning to have his sweet Mark laid to rest, Bambam finally eats. 

He doesn’t want to die.

It's just rice, nothing else, but he stuffs it into his mouth and curls up in his beanbag chair. Marks is a foot to the left, it's red exterior untouched by anyone other than Mocha and her small toe beans. Gumiho walks up to him, the way she has sense Mark didn’t come home. His poor baby doesn’t understand that his hyung is gone. Long fingers comb through her fur carefully, scratching her ears until her head rests on his knee. They don’t move for a long time. He just sits still and watches her, occasionally taking a spoon full of rice and putting it in his mouth. The warmth it brings is nice. 

It takes three weeks for Bambam to go back to school. 

He only missed two classes, because the school issued some time off after the shooting. The class he goes back for is criminology, and it’s the first time in a long while he doesn’t get distracted during the lesson. Three hours and seven pages of notes later, he realizes he didn’t think, he just did as he was told. Soon, he would make it his crutch, studying. 

He gets all of Marks notes back that day, his bag, his phone, the headphones he had in to hear him when he was shot. The now dark haired man takes it all, grips the bag like its his life line and is told what they intend to do. A posthumous graduation certificate. Mark was in his sixth year of college, he could have graduated, but he wanted a PHD in Pharmacology before he did. His last report card would be sent in a few weeks. Bambam waits until they leave, and then he sits down in the middle of the hall and cries into his hands. Life goes on around him.

The funeral is probably the hardest day he has had sense his hyung passed.

He was burried in not a suit, but a soft t-shirt and jeans. He looks like he could get up and ask what's wrong, rub his eyes and manage to fuck up that perfect hairdo in ten seconds flat. He sits right by the casket for the whole ceremony, watching friends and family come up and whisper their goodbyes, he can feel all those eyes checking his shaking body while he watches them in return. He is the first and last to visit, and in the end he stands there and takes Marks hand one last time, slips a silver ring on and pushes a little wooden box into his cold fingers. It has a pop up little lady bug in it. He was going to propose on April fools, propose under his tree and then show it to be a joke. 

He was going to slip the ring on in the night and watch his hyungs face in the morning.

Now his hyung is dead, and he is going into the coffin with a ring that ties him to a broken, living boy. He sniffles and leans down to kiss his forehead, tousle his hair, fuck up his eyeliner. He looks more like Mark now. It's how the red head would want to be burried. He puts a little letter in as well. Four little messages, three little words each, in his best handwriting, and two names. Four languages. Thai, English, Chinese and Korean. Three say the same thing.

Mark,

I love you

-Bambam

One is different though. Instead it says:

Hyung, 

I miss you

-Bammie

 

He really does.


	4. Chapter 4

Bambam isn't the only one who misses Mark.

His friends miss Mark too, the ones who they both know and the ones only his hyung knew. They come to him, and he's thankful for their presence, for the shared sorrow and gentle reprieves they offer. Jackson and Youngjae sob with him, come over and spend time around him whenever hey can. 

They comfort him, and he is so thankful. Those first weeks are hard, and most of them are spent alone, pushing people away and pushing himself into an isolation so he can become okay with being along again. He can't rely on others, he can't just attach himself to a new person and hope that he doesn’t loose them too. He was okay with being alone for a couple hours, even a day or two when he would fly to Thailand without Mark, but it's not the same. He was independent, but dependent as well. He has to be okay on his own for some time.

It takes a month before he leaves his house for anything other than class-- his scholarships are enough to pay his bills, especially now that there is less need to warm the place, pay for more showers, basic living expenses. Without Mark there, there aren't as many, but he would pay for Mark for the rest of his life just to have him there. 

He would do anything to have him there. 

The first place he does go is Youngjae's dorm. It takes a lot for him to do it, he worries over whether he will be welcomed and makes sure he looks okay. He dyed his hair a few days ago, from its natural dark brown to black, to match his state of mind. He now fusses with it, makes sure his eye bags are covered and his hair is pushed back before he heads out. He has a bag filled with snacks, and when he knocks on the door, with its stick on giraffe and the doodle filled speech bubble next to it, he has to wait a moment for Youngjae to answer. When he does, the smile that his hyung gives him is just as bright as always.

It's his second favorite smile on earth. It makes him feel better. 

He goes over to Youngjae's house a lot more after that, and the other boy comes to his house as well. Soon he reaches out to Jackson as well, and while their first real encounter outside his home is sad and a little painful, they are both glad to see one another. Bambam gets cuddled for the first time in a while by his loud hyung. The three of them share one another's homes once again, and sometimes the others stay the night, but no one goes onto Marks side. It's not a rule-- it's just that Bambam doesn’t want to sleep there and make it stop smelling like his red haired hyung, and the others feel like they are defiling it, so both sleep on one side of the mattress, tangled together. He never forgot how much he missed the nights when he and Mark would cuddle, and while its not the same, he loves it anyways. 

It's not like he and Mark cuddled every night-- once you are truly in love, you don’t even have to be touching in the same bed. Some nights they would switch sides, like when Mark had tests and passed out as soon as they got home. On those nights he took care of his hyung, made sure there was food in the fridge and a glass of water on both sides. He likes to think that if Mark hadn't been stolen from him, that day would have led to one of those nights. Other times they faced away from each other, not in anger, but in comfort. Their backs sometimes pressed together, sometimes not. Those were sweet mornings, when he could roll over and see his anxious boys back, wrap his arms around him and kiss the nape of his neck as a wake up call. He was always warmest in his neck. Most nights they slept facing one another, a little bit of space between them, but close enough to feel each others heat and smell the mint on their breaths. Mark liked to link their hands, or hold onto Bambam's shirt as he fell into oblivion. 

The nights when they really cuddled were always his favorites, though. There were always a million and one ways to go about it. Arms loose around each others frames, fingers skimming over spines and the backs of ribs lightly, hair brushing, noses to necks and lips to collar bones. Tight embraces with one between the others arms, pressed back to front, chins hooking over shoulders or noses pressed to soft hair, curled up tightly. Tangled legs and messily strung arms, sweaty skin, contacts still in, cologne lost to dance, heartbeats pressed close to one another. There were so many ways to fall asleep in Marks arms and feel safe.

It's not the same. It's nice, but there is no safety.

Mark was his safety. He stopped feeling the fluttering in his heart and the intense excitement long ago, he didn’t feel like he just fell in love. He felt safe, at home. Mark /was/ his home. He felt not fluttery and jittery around the elder, but at peace, and he could visibly tell that he did the same for the other boy. His whole body would untense, his careful eyes would soften some and his nails slowly turned from quick-bitten to a little longer. Nothing Bambam ever did could completely rid Mark of his anxieties, at least not for long, but he certainly made them easier to deal with. He knew he helped his hyung relax, and he's proud that he could do that much. It was a stepping stone for them once Bambam learned of his anxiety. Mark was proud of both of them, Bambam was just proud of Mark. He was always proud of him. He still is. 

When summer draws near, he doesn’t strip the bed of its comforter, down to the thin sheets. There is no one there to overheat him in the night and warrant their removal, so he keeps it, his bed sickeningly cold even in the heat of his first truly darkened summer. He remembers one summer where it rained too much, the sky ever dark with its angry clouds and pale sun, but he didn’t need the real sun when he had a man who shined like the moon for him and lit up the world. 

The season still seems beautiful to him, with the warm sun and blue sky, the flowers across the ground and the lush leaves in the trees, but it's not as beautiful. The clouds seem far too heavy, dripping down at their edges, like they might spill over the world in a solid sheet or slowly drip blocks of cloud on his city. Flowers are too colorful, the roses in gardens so red they seem like wine, the sunflowers no longer sunny but a saturated yellow that makes the world around them seem tinged with darkness, the daisies shaded a little too grey. He no longer sees the pink cherry petals on the trees, but the ones by his feet, smashed by walkers and shoes, bikes, scooters and tires, beaten until they have nothing left and are streaked in dirt. They remind him of himself.

The broken things in life remind him of himself. The jittery things, the nervous ones remind him of Mark. Ironically, couples he passes on the streets don’t make him sad, their love makes him smile a little bit. Him and Mark were like that. It makes him happy to see others cherishing the ones they hold dear. They still hold their sun shines close.

After all, what else is the love of your life to you but the sun?

Sometimes its hard to look at them, but your world revolves around a single person. You have other forces, other pulls at your life, but every night you think of your sunshine before you fall into oblivion. You may not dream of them, him or her or they, whatever your preference, but they are always there. Bambam no longer has his sun. His world is darkened, but the stars show up to keep his life going, to keep him alive. Mark was his sun, while he was around, and now without him the world seems dull, everything both too bright and too dark without his hyung there to even out the colors. 

That summer he stays with Jacksons family for a short while, two weeks is all. They share jokes, kind words and the two boys share a bed for a while, until Bambam choses the couch. No one asks him to change back. His last night is spent in bed with Jackson, the other with his face burried in the ravenettes chest, his own long finders stroking the elders scalp late into the night. He isn't sure why he feels so sad to go. Maybe he is just sad to be apart from one of his closest friends.

He visits Bangkok that summer, and Los Angeles, and even spends a little time over in Busan with Jungkook's parents. All of them miss his young friend desperately, but he never returned to either of them, and its just another loss that hits him, only this one a repeat offense. 

School starts up again, filled to the brim with books to read, notes to take and papers to write, and it’s a welcome reprieve from his still mourning mind. His only real escapes are dance and school, and both have their negative impacts. 

He studies so hard and for so long his eyes end up burning. He looses sleep and losses weight when exams come, then gains it back in the summer while he travels. His vision is filled with words, and many are not his own, but the familiar, long scrawl of Marks hand. He spends hours and hours alone in his home, on the bed or at the table, reading those beautiful notes, color coded and clear. Notebooks filled with diagnosis information. Packets of medications and disorders. Everything and anything he can get his hands on when he wants to distract himself and finds he had no more work. His grades have never been more perfect, and the next school year, he signs up for five classes instead of four. 

Dance is a different story all together. He dances harder now, letting his pain come out in movements, letting it fill the mirror walled room of the dance studio a few blocks away from home. His lungs ache every time and he keeps dancing, but it's not the same without his hyung there to help him and learn with him. It's not the same without the sweaty heaps of body parts after they finish, the kisses to the back of his neck to convince him to go home, the whines and tugs at his shirt to take a break. He dances for hours some nights, purely to mask his hurt and get used to not having Mark right there while he dances. His muscles still remember the red heads movements. He dances until those muscles hurt and scream for him to stop, until he can't breathe, until his hands shake and his tongue tastes like sand paper. 

He dances until his muscles can't tell him there is something wrong, someone missing.

Most people don’t know who he is missing though, but it's obvious even in the simplest things. His long fingers still reach back every once in a while to pull on shirt hems or belt loops and ask a question to his red haired boy, only to find no one there. One little girl asked him about it. "I forgot that my angel isnt here anymore," he had said with a soft smile. She had asked him to crouch down, and then she booped his nose, calling him silly. Her mother, though, gave him a sad look and a soft, "It'll get easier," but she had no inkling of what she was talking about. It will get easier, but it takes a long time, far longer than she would ever know. He still starts singing terrible songs when they come on in public, expecting for a short instant to be pushed by Mark and laughed at, but when he remembers his hyung isn't there, tears tug at the corners of his eyes.

They always had such different music tastes, such different genres and artists, but they still listened to music they didn’t like just to see the other smile. The younger would listen to measured rock and loud, heavy music just to watch Mark relax at the familiar voices. The red head would put up with bubbly pop and piano to see Bambam bopping around in the kitchen early in the morning, making toaster waffles or mediocre bibimbap for them both. They would cringe together when truly terrible songs came on, only to have the younger dab and sing until the elder shut it off or changed the channel. Some nights they would put on piano music and fall asleep with it going before bed. Well, Mark would fall asleep, Bambam would be trying not to head bang along to Moonlight sonata and eventually turn it off to get some actual sleep. Music is one of the hardest things on him now, without the red haired boy, because every song seems to carry meaning and a tie to him, be it a joke or date night or simply a shared hatred for it. He still sings a lot to the elder boys favorites in croaked English, tears dripping down his cheeks. He still does a lot of things thinking Mark will be there.

Bambam still reaches over to grab Marks hand when he and his little friend group, but he almost always finds nothing. Youngjae usually reaches out and takes his hand instead, and he feels a little bit better. 

But he doesn’t feel okay anymore. Sure, a little less sad and maybe even a little happy at times, but that is nothing compared to what he feels is okay. He doesn’t think he will ever get to be fully okay without his beautiful, nervous, sweet hyung, but he can try. He can try to get half way there. He can try to be a little more okay, even if it doesn’t do much.

He is having one of those trying to be okay days, sitting in his little green beanbag chair, his little baby shabu-shabu crawling around in his hands, those big eyes looking less sleepy than they should. She is supposed to sleep during the day, after all. There is a knock at the door, a soft one that makes him wonder who it could possibly be. It sounds a lot like Marks knock, only its three raps instead of two. It's definitely not Jacksons loud 1-2 and a 3-4. It's not Youngjae's 'I have no idea how many times I have knocked so I'm going to keep doing it'. It's not the soft yet firm three raps of Jaebum's knuckle followed by a doorbell ring. It's just three soft raps. 

Shabu-shabu crawls onto his shoulder at the noise, letting her little body catch a ride on his shoulder as he stands and walks towards the sound slowly, socked feet brushing the carpet in the living room and then the tile of the kitchen, stopping in front if the door to breathe for a moment. He doesn't like dealing with strangers much anymore. 

He opens up the white painted door slowly, looking at the ground, and subsequently the other males shoes, and then up at the strangers face to find a boy with bitten lips and slightly nervous eyes standing there. He recognizes him. Jin-something from the funeral, although he looks very different now, with his bangs held back in a beanie and his body hidden by a sweatshirt instead of dressed up in a suit. He remembers how this boy had whispered a final goodbye to Mark and fixed his shirt a little. There had been unshed tears in his eyes the whole time.

They stare at one another for a moment, Bambam at a dark haired boy with a small smattering of acne across his forehead, Jin-something staring at a thin boy with a sugar glider on his shoulder and sad, dark eyes. No words are said until the younger of the two opens his mouth and says, "I don’t remember your name." It's an honest statement. The taller male covers his mouth with both hands and snorts. Bambam cracks a tiny little smile.

"Park Jinyoung," he says after a moment, his nervous eyes now accompanied by a nervous smile, "You're Bambam, right?"

He nods, curious about the boys intentions, why he has decided to visit so long after the funeral and how he found his address. It's strange to him, but he kind of wants to know, just for the sake of figuring out more about Jinyoung. He knows the name, and he knows him and Mark were friends, but that’s it.

"I have something I kind of forgot I had after…well you know. Thought you might want it." 

It's now that Bambam notices the big black backpack on the others shoulders, mostly because he takes it off and drops the thing to the ground with a thump, now crouching by its side. After a moment, he pulls out a notebook, 5-subject, college rulled. The cover is yellow. The cover also has familiar handwriting on it.

'Mark Tuan. AP neurochemistry 3.'


	5. Chapter 5

Bambam is a little speechless, wondering how this literal stranger to him got his hyungs notebook. He thought he had them all in Marks bag, just a foot or two behind him. It takes a minute for him to take the thick stack of bound paper, his fingers shaking lightly as he pulls it to his chest and looks down at it. The edges of the cover are covered in those little loopty loop flowers Mark liked to draw. He misses seeing them appear on all his homework assignments or his study materials. 

"How…", he starts, the metal spiral digging into his arm and the side of his ribs, "How did you get it?"

It's a simple question. It's a logical question. Still, it takes Jinyoung a moment to form his words, those chapped lips starting to move and stopping a few times. It's something sickeningly familiar, sickeningly close to the way Mark used to pause and think a few times before speaking to a new person.

"I was in class with Mark-hyung when he passed away." 

It's a simple statement, but it does almost nothing to explain anything for him. In fact, it just makes his heart hurt worse than it already does. He doesn’t want to talk about this. When the tenseness in his shoulders doesn’t fade, Jinyoung quickly continues.

"He was writing in it when you called him that day. Well, he called you actually, but that’s besides the point. He was scribbling in it when the lock down started, and it got left behind when the paramedics took him away after…you know."

Bambam swallows hard, glancing at the notebook as words continue to come out of the others mouth.

"I stuck it in my bag after they carted him away…a couple pages are a little bloody, but most of it is still okay. I ment to give it to you but I forgot I had it until about month ago," Jinyoung explains, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater with nice nails, "And then I had to try and figure out who you were and where you live…"

Bambam cringes at the thought that a tiny piece of Mark is now pressed to his chest again. His skin crawls; this little piece of Mark was accidentally kept from him for a very long time, almost 9 months now, this little piece of Mark was stuffed in someones bag, toted around without a thought. 

"Thanks…thank you, I appreciate it," he whispers, and he can feel little shabu-shabu shifting in his shoulder, moving her head around and checking the world the way she likes to do.

There's a moment of awkward silence after Jinyoung mumbles, "You're welcome," in which time he can feel himself being observed. 

He looks better than he did, his hair a shade darker but much better kept, he isn't dressed in a button up but in a loose t-shirt and jeans, there is no makeup on but his dark circles have faded once more. He doesn’t seem as sad as before, but grief can still be seen in his demeanor. It's hard to miss it, even the black haired boy has seen his grieving face, he does see it every morning in the mirror. He doesn’t mind the look over, it's only logical, especially in the silence that follows the shorter males even shorter words. 

"Would you like something to drink?", he finally asks, and those words are so Mark in nature that if it didn’t sadden him, he would have busted out laughing. Jinyoung's chapped lips tug up just a little at the words, and he shakes his head some, reaching down to pick up his bag once more. 

"Well, thank you again. I'll…see you around. Hopefully not stalking my home," Bambam says, trying to make a little joke out of how this stranger had to go out of his way and find his address. He earns a snort, just a tiny one that is quickly covered by manicured fingers.

"Im not a stalker."

"Okay, but you are."

Jinyoung shakes his head a little, stepping back from the door with a little wave before the it closes. It takes a long time for Bambam to stop crying. He shuts that door and presses his forehead to the cool wood as tears drip down his cheeks. He turns around, and slides down it to let himself cry and clutch the notebook even tighter. This is a piece of Mark, of his writing and his smile, of his mind, of the days he spent away from him in class being a good student. It's a miracle he even has tears anymore. Shabu-shabu has already crawled down from his shoulder to sit on his socked feet by the time he has stopped sobbing, his cheeks red and puffy as he glances down at his little friend. 

"Come on, let's get you to bed," he whispers in a soft, pained voice. The poor little sugar glider not understanding as he gives a little high pitched chirp--or would it be a warble? He doesn't really know, he's just sure the poor creature is tired and doesn’t understand when she is lifted up and walked across the house to her big cage, the lights turning off so that she can sleep. 

Back in his living room, he is almost afraid to open up the notebook, to see what kinds of things his hyung was scribbling in the minutes before his death. 

He knows this notebook well, it's one that Mark used as both a venting journal and a class notebook, and in the few months before his passing, he rarely used it because they had gotten much better at soothing the others anxieties. He rarely wrote other than as a kind of coping mechanism, writing down his obsessive, scary thoughts or simply writing anything to keep his mind focused on something real and tangible. Bambam had always made a point of not reading those words until Mark said it was okay, and Mark rarely did unless he wrote things specifically for him. Wouldn’t this be, like, defiling Marks last wishes? He had run out of journals that were considered okay for him to read, and he hadn't touched the little stack of I read ones in marks bedside table. 

But these were his last moments, right? These are the last bits of Marks mind that he could possibly see, the last things he wrote before he was shot, the last things he wrote before he bled out on the floor. 

They should be okay to read, right?

He isn't sure how long he stares at the notebook, and he would have known had he checked the digital clock ten feet from his face when he sat down, but sometimes he isn't observant all the time. In fact, he rarely was. That was Marks forte. Eventually the thin pages are opened, not to the last words written in it, but too the first, the inside cover of the notebook. 'Please return this notebook and its accompanying person to Bambam.' He had written that in all his hyungs notebooks, right at the beginning of the semester, when they had to get new materials, and the other boy had done the same for him. Now it makes his heart hurt, especially to see the little doodled flowers and hearts and smiley faces all around the words.

He likes how much it seems that Mark loved him. It makes him happy, warms his heart and pulls a smile to his lips only to have it smashed away by longing to hold the other once more. With everything he did, it seemed to Bambam that Mark loved him. It seemed that way to other people as well, it was clear that they both loved one another, not one person who met them together had any doubt about that, even if they thought it was just familial. 

He flips through a few pages, the first few, detailing the contents of the book in a rainbow of pen inks-- Mark always was so careful about how he organized his notes, it's refreshing compared to his own messy scribbles during class that he has to decipher later the same day. 

More pages, more colors, more careful writing in three languages, everything clearly organized and well written. 

"Dopamine, Histimines, Histamine responses, Allergies, Serotonin," he mumbles to himself, flipping through page after page and reading headers to himself.

"Cocaine addiction, ignore this page, heroi-" he stumbles, moving back a page. It seemed just like every other one at first glance, colorful and bright, words neatly written, but they aren't medical terms or drugs or anything like that. They are thoughts, written all in a single language, Korean. Even if his grasp of the written language is still just a little bit iffy, he recognizes what is being said.

We have a test in two days  
Im not ready for it, I haven't even got all the effects of histamines' on the human body  
I haven't got down the difference between serotonin and dopamine  
Aren't they both happy neurotransmitters?  
Doesn't serotonin have something to do with hunger?  
Oh gosh I wish bam were here, he knows how to make me feel better and help me get ready for tests  
He always makes me feel better by making me think of other things when I get like this  
You can do that too, remember?  
Other thoughts, other thoughts, come on brain stop making the words in the head go and make the words go on the paper  
That…I just wrote that  
What the heck is up with me, now I'm giggling in the middle of the night while Bambam is all the way over in Bangkok for his sisters wedding  
I do feel better though  
Thank you  
Im going to call you Bambam junior because I'm tired of calling all these papers strangers  
Maybe one day I will rename you guys, when we have an actual Bambam junior  
I want a Bambam junior one day

That’s a new one, but it's not the first 'anxiety page' he has seen that Mark has written. A lot of them start out with his anxious thoughts, worries about tests or the future or whatever else Mark found to be plaguing his mind, but many end on lighter notes. His red haired hyung asking something weird or stupid and laughing at himself, being a salty boy about something that they both do and roasting himself until he feels better, just about anything so that his worries go away.

Mark had always described his anxieties as overhanging and always there, something that poked at the back of his thoughts, but when they got bad it was to the point where he felt as though he couldn't breathe. He had seen his hyung during a number of panic attacks, as to be expected when you live together, and he usually seemed just fine on the outside aside from tremors in his lips and deeper breaths than usual. Many thought nothing of them, but Mark was always good at looking okay when his world decided to fall apart from the inside-out. 

There had been occasions where he would get messages in class and straight up walk across campus in the middle of a lecture just to go and help the red head calm down some, and while none of their professors ever liked it at all, they seemed to understand it more so than not. Just having a hand to hold or someone to kiss his hair did a lot better at soothing his anxieties than just about anything. In the three years that he had spent learning about anxiety and panic attacks, he had also learned about how different they tend to be for different people. Some needed space, but others, like Mark, needed to be grounded. Some couldn’t breathe, others can't see they get so lost in their heads, but on one of the nights when they both got a little tipsy and started talking about his anxieties, Mark had told him that the world seemed to become too bright and loud to him. He felt like everything was spinning and moving as fast as the thoughts in his head, that his heart would beat too hard, that he got dizzy and couldn't breathe properly. He had also said then that being grounded was always helpful because it gave him one thing to focus on, one thing to help him ignore the world. It usually worked best when it was a person, and Bambam was as good at helping with that as his hyungs parents and sister. He can't help with that anymore now, thought.

Another few thin pages are flipped past, then thirty or fourty before anything of interest other than the smaller males pretty handwriting can be found. The thing that catches his eye-- a poorly drawn neuron dendrite and its accompanying synapse (at least that’s what the labels for it say). It's pretty and colorful, so even though the line work isn't great, you can tell what is what. But the thing that gets him are all the little smiley faces along the bottom edge of the page, and he wonders what was going through Marks head when he drew them. Not even Bambam knows everything about the other, but that’s okay, no one is supposed to know that other than Mark himself.

There are tears in his eyes at the sight of those smiley faces, but he isn't sure why. Maybe its because he wants to know why they are there-- was there anything special about the date? 

October 23rd. No, just a normal day.

He keeps flipping through these pages, now forgetting that this was the last thing Mark wrote in and just enjoying the sight of more of his beautiful handwriting, even if there are parts he can't read--his hyung still wrote them, and that’s enough for him. Anxiety pages, notes, diagrams, doodles by page numbers and little loopy flowers lining paper edges close to test dates. Then he gets to a page that sticks to the next, and after a couple minutes he gets them apart, a little dried brown spot on both of them having been the cause. Blood. 

Oh god he's going to be sick.

But he can't seem to stop.

Most of the pages that do have blood on them don’t have much and have already been carefully pulled apart. That must have been Jinyoung's work, the other boy seemed to have steady yet careful hands, something Bambam himself had been lacking sense the loss of his love. More notes, more notes, highlighted words and color coded reactions--there aren't many pages left when he gets to the last one with writing, splattered all across in dried brown. He can't read much of it, but the fragments he gets made his heart hurt.

I'm scared…bam isn…I wonder if this guy will find…I hear him-Bammie…

Most of it isn't readable, something that saddens him immensely, but the few small parts he can read have tears in his eyes already. The last thing at the bottom, half obstructed yet still readable, has his salty tears falling already. 

I wish bambam-ah were holding me  
He always makes me feel better when I'm scared

He pulls his knees up, the notebook between his torso and his thighs, and his tears start to soak his knees because that's just too sad for him to imagine. His poor, poor Mark, shaking probably, on the phone with him, whispering how everything is okay and how he loves him while wishing not to die. While wishing he was there to offer comforts. While whishing he was just there.

It's a long time before he stops crying. It's only a short time before he gets up once his tears have stopped, going to put the book in the stack of other notebooks from Mark. 

Bambam wants to call someone, to talk and be distracted, but he doesn’t want to be a bother. That seems to be a big worry of his lately. Youngjae is in class, Jackson is probably at the gym, Mark…mark is gone. Jaebum is most likely at one of his photoshoots. All the people who keep him together he either can't reach out to or he's scared too. He pulls out his phone and stares at the dark screen for a long time before he really sees what he's looking at in that glass. He sees himself, and feels pathetic, because even though he spent the first month without his Mark mostly alone, he still isn't okay with himself after that loss.

Maybe its because he doesn’t want to be left alone again, or because he's scared that if he isn't around people, they might just disappear. It took thirty minutes with his hyung out of his sight for his whole world to quite literally be shattered around him. It took 8 hours for Jungkook to disappear almost five years ago. It took two hours for his little kitty to be stolen from him, and it took only minutes for his father to be damned to the same fate.

That’s probably it, if he is being totally honest with himself, but who possibly has the clear mind to be honest to themselves? Everyone lies, everyone fools themselves and others, and Bambam is no different. 

It's too bad he can't fool himself into thinking that Marks ghost is actually Mark.

He wishes it were, but that’s even sadder. He wouldn’t want his hyung wasting the afterlife to lay in bed with him when he's sad and remind him to take out the garbage once a week. The afterlife is supposed to make you feel free, and he wouldn’t want to weigh his red haired hyungs spirit down like that.

He didn’t believe in the afterlife until he lost Mark. He used to be an atheist and think that there was nothing after death, but he can't think like that now, not when his precious hyung isn't standing next to him anymore. There has to be something after life where he can see him again, where he can join him when his own time has come.

He wonders when his time will come.


	6. Chapter 6

Bambam never does reach out to any of his friends after reading the last of Marks notebooks. Instead, he spends his night on the couch with Gumiho, just wrapped around her warm body, enjoying her presence. She is alive and well, there for him. It's times like this he is really happy to have his pets, because even if they aren't people like him, he can still enjoy the welcome distractions they provide, from wrestling to cuddles to feeding them. It's like a structure to keep his life going, feeding and watering them, offering love and warmth to his babies. Sometimes he wonders if he would have made it through life without animals. He probably wouldn’t have. 

He wakes up to find his tummy rumbling at a little after four in the morning. He slept for almost 14 hours, and somehow Gumiho stayed with him the whole time, her big fluffy head laid on his shoulder and her body sprawled across his narrow chest. Despite his hunger, he doesn’t move for almost an hour, until she gets up at the sound of Pudding skittering around in the kitchen.

Dog and person both follow the noise, and find that Pudding was not skittering on the tile floor, but on the counter, pawing at the tap. 

"What is it girlie?", he asks, head tilting to the side as he crouches to eye level with her, watching that one little paw smack the metal before she shifts to do it again. "Baby, your water is in the other room. Come on," he coos, lifting the tiny cat up and walking her into the living room, setting her by Mocha and then heading back to the kitchen. 

He makes two cups of coffee. It takes a little while of him staring at the second cup with furrowed brows to realize he doesn’t need it. By then he has finished his own cup, putting the now-empty yellow mug into the skink, and taking the cold cup of coffee for himself. 

He does this every morning, only normally the sun is up when it happens, and he doesn’t have to see his own sad face drinking from a purple mug reflected in the kitchen window. It looks weird, and if he un-focuses his eyes, he can almost imagine that he is seeing Mark instead of himself, back when his hair was dyed black instead of red or blonde or pink. The little illusion is shattered rather quickly though, because he doesn’t have his hyungs nose, or his lips, heck, he doesn’t even hold his coffee the same way. The elder held it with both hands and tilted his head down to sip from it while the skinny male held his with one hand, his other arm across his chest. 

Bambam turns away from the window, looking into the dark of his small kitchen. It's a room that he spends a lot of time in now that Mark is gone. He spent a lot more time in it before the other left than he realized, but not as much as now. It's a room filled to the brim with memories and whispers of old conversations on its walls, neat dishes stacked in its cupboards and the dust pan hanging up right next to the trash can.

The memory of why he has that dust pan right there makes him smile.

It was back when Mark first moved in with him. He had a head of red curled hair that day, day number one that would lead to four and a half years worth of days with the both of them in this home. Both had been nervous, knowing that they would share a bed and a home for at least a few months, until the elder could find another place. Bambam had been shorter than him at the time by a few inches, and he was still stumbling over his Korean, so there were some disconnects.

"Do I just…leave my stuff in the foyer or take it to the bedroom," the taller had asked and the small Thai male had looked at him with furrowed brows. What the fuck is a foyer? Ten minutes into living together and already they can't communicate.

"The what?", he had asked curiously, mumbling the new word under his breath, and Mark, instead of explaining, had simply tapped his fingers nervously and repeated the word until the younger could pronounce it properly.

"It's uh…it's this area right here," the red head had explained as he set his bags down in the kitchen, walking into the little hall thingy that led from the front door into the rest of the home. He had spread out his arms exaggeratedly, filling the space with his waving skinny arms and earning giggles from the small 16 year old. 

"Foyer…okay, I got it," he had said with a bright smile, and ever patient Mark had given him that big canine smile of his along with finger guns. They both laughed at that together for a moment before Bambam asked what the question had been, to which the other happily repeated it. "Let's take it to the bedroom."

They had taken the red haired boys three bags into the room, and even if it took up a little corner of the room and made it so the bed was accessible from only one side, Bambam didn’t mind at all. He could climb across the bed to his side when the time came. 

"The closet is pretty much empty, and the other dresser doesn’t have anything in it, so you can put your clothes there. I hope I don’t make your stay too bad," Bambam had joked, and Mark, who was already one of his better friends, had ruffled his hair with a great big smile.

"I think you're going to make it better."

The great big smile he had didn’t fade for the rest of the day, even when he had to painstakingly feed Shabu-shabu and reorganize his school bag for the new grading period. He normally didn’t gripe about those things much, but that day he went about both difficult tasks with a better attitude than normal.

Later that night had been quite awkward to say the least. After they had both showered and gotten dressed, during which time Bambam had to run and grab Marks stack of clothes for him and hand them through the door, there was the matter of sleeping arrangements, which seemed to freak Mark out a bit.

"But you're only 16," he had said at least a dozen times to the young Bambam, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, head tilted in a lack of understanding.

"And you aren't going to do anything, right? Right. I don’t see what the big deal is." 

"You are underage, and sleeping in the same bed with you-- it's just not right."

The younger male has furrowed his brows, not fully understanding. Had one of them been a female, he would understand. Had he been a teen girl or Mark a young woman, he would understand the issue, but they are both boys, only four years apart in age. There shouldn’t be any big fuss about it. "Hyung, it's fine. You don’t have to…to…what's the word? The one where all the butterflies run around in your stomach, but the stressed butterflies?"

"Worry? Worried?"

"Worry, yeah! You don’t have to worry," the younger had said sweetly, taking the four pillows, now five, that they had and setting up a little wall between both sides, "We won't even touch. Is that better?"

The red head has stared, pushing back his red mop of hair and eventually he crawled into bed, abet hesitantly. The grin on the Thai males face could have rivaled Youngjae's in brightness. They both snuggled up once he turned off the light and crawled over Marks slim legs to get to his side, but he didn’t go to sleep right away, sitting up on his elbows and looking over the little pillow wall at the bigger boy. "Night hyung," he had whispered into the gloom, and in a moment he got one in return, as well as a lunch to the nose that had him giggling and falling onto the mattress. 

Neither slept well that night. The American born male because he was nervous about being in the same bed as a minor, and also because he was worried about snoring, he later learned. The Thai boy because he was excited to have a new roommate after Jungkook left.

The reason why this pertains to the dust pan is getting close, he reminds himself, sipping at his coffee with that same smile. You aren't just remembering to make your heart hurt. This is a happy memory, a funny one.

His heart still hurts a little.

That next morning had been a rough one, in which the brunette boy woke up with his legs tangled in Marks own and a pillow shoved quite firmly against his face, that same pillow which appears to have the elder bent at an acute angle. Bambam officially hates this pillow. 

It is because of this pillow that he ends up falling off the bed when he is trying to detangle himself from his red haired companions legs, and then has to crawl over that pillow and those same legs to escape the room. All in all, he is a sleepy little mess when he gets to the kitchen to make himself some coffee, only to find the coffee is not where he left it.

It's in the trash. Meaning he is out of coffee.

Fuck him.

One convenience store trip later, and he walks into the door looking like he just rolled out of bed to find Mark wandering aimlessly around the tiny apartment in search of, most likely, him. He waits in the entrance hall thingy-- the foyer-- until the red haired male just goes to the cabinets and starts searching for coffee, at which point Bambam walks up and lets the thing of coffee grounds smack into the table with a great big grin. 

A green mug falls to the ground along with a shriek of surprise from the taller male, who scrambles away, still without shoes or socks on, in the hopes he won't cut up his feet.

A small chorus of worries goes up from both parties, but neither move, just stare at the shattered cup before Bambam mumbles, "Gotta go find the mini sweep thing with the tiny broom now." He runs to the bathroom, thinking its there, but it's not and now he is confused, wandering into the kitchen again and then to the living room. Still no dust pan. How has he lived here for 3 years and still he doesn’t know where his fucking dust pan is? 

"I found it!", he hears from the kitchen, sticking his head in to find Mark holding up the dust pan. "Oh, and its called a dust pan, for future reference." He didn't complain when the red head dumped the shattered cup in the trash can, or when he made them both wear slippers so they didn't get stuck by the little shards he may have missed. Instead he just gets the coffee going, standing in front of the coffee machine with a little glare. 

"Are you trying to make it boil faster?", the elder boy had asked, and he just shook his head.

Later that day he was found sitting by the trash can, putting a nail in the wall and then hanging up the dust pan.

"Take that you little fucking fuck."

"Language!"

He had said the same thing in Thai two seconds later, and there was a loud huff from the red haired boy in the living room, but he says nothing.

He smiles to himself a little more, pale light starting to make its way into his kitchen and outline his shoulders. He sips from the cold coffee and wonders if Mark ever looked back on that first morning they spent together in the same home and thinks about how much of a child he was. 

He likes to think that Mark liked him from the get go, seeing as both of them said it was about four years their relationship had been going on, but he isn't so sure Mark would like that. He was always careful about the other boys age, and even if he did love the skinny Thai boy, he made sure no lines were crossed, legal or otherwise. Of course, in Korea there were no legal barriers if it was consensual, seeing as legal age in the country is only 13, so it was more of a moral thing. It's one of the things the brunette liked about him, and he is happy that he wasn’t taken advantage of by the elder boy. He so easily could have been.

Once he had turned 18, he knew that however their platonic relationship evolved it wouldn’t be anything crazy, and it wasn't. Just kisses and more cuddles, and holding hands together in public. But mostly kisses.

It had started out with minty toothpaste kisses to his cheeks, an attack the morning he turned 18 when the elder had straddled him with a toothbrush in his mouth and covered his face in minty kisses.

"Wake up kiddo!", the boy had said brightly, a great big grin on his lips around the toothbrush from what he could see through his squinted eyes. He was still shirtless, and his hair was a freshly dyed blonde, bright and clean that made the couch and his pillow smell vaguely of bleach. His squint disappeared quickly after that, as his eyes shut again. "Come on Bam! You're 18 now, so you gotta open up those eyes." Mark shook him, poked his tummy and his nose, but none of it worked. 

It had taken the first three little foamy kisses to his cheeks for him to really wake up, blinking his eyes open to see the elder grinning down at him, the room sunny. Another kiss between his eyes. He giggled and the smile that pulled at his lips was brighter than the light coming from the windows. The menthol on the others lips made his skin tingle bit he didn’t wipe them away, only laid there and let him continue. 

"Just a sec," the blonde had mumbles, moving to brush his teeth more and make more minty bubbles before he leaves more kisses on his skin. It takes a little more than two dozen to get him to sit up and steal the others tooth brush from his hand. 

"I'm coming for you!", he had yelled as Mark scrambled away and off the bed, his own legs already kicking away the blankets as he scrubs his teeth, intent on covering the elder in even more minty kisses. He didn’t get to though, only wiggled his skinny arms and body outside the locked bathroom door. "Come on, let me in! I have to brush my teeth hyung!" 

"You have the kitchen sink!", Mark had giggled through the door, and Bambam begrudgingly went to finish brushing his teeth in said kitchen, right where he is standing with now, actually. 

The sun is fully up now, the back of his dark head burning with the heat of its light, but he stands there without a care, finishing his second cup of coffee, which is now cold. The room is cold-- after all, it is winter. Winter doesn’t change how hot the sun can get, though.

He heads into the bathroom, which still feels far too big and cold without Mark in it too, and ties his bangs up and out of his face, starting to actually function for the day. He has noticed that he looks much younger when his hair is fully held back, like now, or when it is covering his forehead in bangs, but Mark still preferred it pushed back a little. He always said it made him look more cute and less cute, which was a good thing because then the elder would have to 'Stop myself from pinching your cheeks and asking for kisses every ten seconds!' The younger always made a point of wearing his bangs down in public just to make his hyungs life harder, and also maybe to get more kisses. 

What can he say, he loves affection and always has. That’s why himself and Jackson became friends. That’s how he figured out how to help Mark through his panic attacks. Lots of people gave him nick names for it. 'Cuddle bam', 'koala', 'Teddy bear', and his favorite, 'cuddle bunny'. He never said he liked the nick names though, he always whined and pushed people to get them to stop, but his red haired hyung knew the truth.

"You love it, cuddly bun bun, and you know it."

"No I don't! Stop it Mark-hyung!"

"If you don’t like it then why do you make such a fuss? If you didn’t we would all get bored and stop calling you all those cute nick names." 

That trademark smile, canines out and eyes scrunched up. "I make a fuss because I don’t like it!"

"Whatever you say, Bam."

His head shakes and he's back to the real world, his skinny body swimming in a tiny bathroom without someone there to fill up the small empty spaces around him. His purple toothbrush is shoved between his teeth with something akin to anger, but it's not at anyone other than himself. Sometimes it pisses him off how often he gets lost in his head when he is alone, just thinking about Mark and how much he wants him back, remembering and reading and distracting himself from the frail world around him. 

Frail.

It is a really good word to describe the world, because even as he scrubs his teeth so hard his cheeks hurt and he's sure he is going to make his gums bleed, he knows every inch of it can be so easily shattered. 

One gun, one loss, one person and his safety was shattered. 

One note, one bag and a years worth of nights waiting for a call.

Twenty minutes, a cat and a crying little girl.

The world is as frail as himself. He spits into the sink, and is a little surprised to find the froth isn't tinted pink the way it is when he brushes his teeth while upset. His anger fades at the sight, and he does his usual skin care routine almost mechanically, thinking of nothing and everything. By the time he leaves for class, he seems almost normal, bangs down across his eyebrows and almost his eyes, almost long enough to be a public blanket, something to really hide behind. He doesn’t hide behind them in class. Instead he pays attention, just like Mark would have wanted him too. He has no reason to check his phone. There won't be a message from Mark, and so he has no reason to look away from the board and let himself cry.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I didn't normally talk much in the notes or leave summaries, but I figure its a little more interesting to just walk in blind. You know the tags, you have read this far, so enjoy. This ones a little lighter and the next few will be to establish characters more and really get to know what everyones like, but soon some really angsty stuff will pop up, so be ready
> 
> Enjoy my children!!

"How come you never went through all the stages of grief?"

If there is one thing that you can count on when hanging out with Youngjae, it's strange questions. Why ask about grief when you are making ramyeon on movie night? Because it's Youngjae. The question has Bambam's smile faltering, but it doesn’t leave his lips. Stages. Stages. He recognizes that word, it's one he knows, but he can't translate it in his head, so it takes a moment. Stages, he knows synonyms to it. Steps, parts, right stages. Now he remembers, and more than that he remembers the five stages of grief from introductory psychology back in his first year of college, but why bring them up now?

It turns out, this had been a question the dark haired boy had been dying to ask for months, and while he never was very good with timing and rarely learned from when his timing blew up in his face, he definitely knew that up til now, Bambam hadn't been in an okay enough state to handle such a weird question.

"The stages...what do you mean by that? I'm still grieving now," he says, confused, head tilting to the side as he waits for water to boil so they can continue their movie with food. Youngjae looks at him with curious eyes, tilting his head to copy Bambam.

"I know you are, but you never bargained to get Mark back, at least not really. I was told that you asked him to a couple times not to go, right after it happened…" Youngjae trails off, voice soft and sympathetic. The wound of Marks loss is still raw for all of them, but it's gotten a little easier on each of his friends in their own time. Jaebum could handle it best before himself and his hyungs, Jackson coming next with his lighter outlook on life. Youngjae and himself took longer, and only recently having become okay with speaking of it without bursting into tears.

Still, this is new. Normally they don’t just out into random questions surrounding his passing when trying to hang out-- it was an unspoken thing but not one that could not be breached. 

"There is no use for me to ask for something when I know it will never get it," the younger male explains softly, shrugging his shoulders and looking over to see the water still isn't boiling, "I didn’t see the point once I wasn’t in the moment, because it just wouldn’t do anything. He was gone… and I didn’t need to hurt myself more." His mind already hurt him enough, with the ghost of Mark lingering close by every moment of the day and the whispers of him still around. With the false warmth he seems to feel at night as he falls asleep and searches desperately for in the mornings. With the extra cups of coffee and lack of warmth. 

"Okay, well what about depression?" The other wasn’t sure exactly how to classify what was or wasn't considered depression, especially in Bambam's case, and he was curious to see if the younger had gone through it, or at least thought he did. Bambam wouldn’t understand that curiosity though. It's was a little morbid for his usually innocent tastes.

It's a logical question, and the black haired boy pauses for a moment before nodding.

"I guess I kind of went through that. Remember how I didn’t leave my bed for a couple days after it happened?" That was the closest he has ever come to what he expects depression to look and feel like, and if it wasn’t truly that then he didn’t want to know what some people deal with on a daily basis. He really hopes he never knows.

"Yeah, I guess you are right. No denial?" Now it seems more like Youngjae is trying to grab at straws and follow the things he has been told, that many have been told sense they were young. In his own grief, he never reached for the five steps, he just let himself feel the loss and deal with it his own way, unlike the other.

"There was no denying what I saw with my own eyes," he says simply, putting the blocks of ramyeon into the now boiling water. Youngjae nods in understanding-- he was more of a seeing is believing type, and had needed to wait until he saw Mark at the funeral to truly believe that he had passed, but once that occurred he didn’t exactly hit the denial stage in his own mourning process. Still, he had followed the other four steps almost to a T, and it didn’t make sense why Bambam didn't do the same.

"Wrath then?"

"Not everyone grieves the same way, hyung. I didn't get mad, I just got really sad," he explains, hoping that Youngjae understands, and based on the nod and the sobered look on his face, he gets it. He really does, because everyone is different, and the naïve boy knows enough about the world to say that much. 

In the past month or two, Bambam had become aware of his lack of normality in the loss of Mark, both in the suddenness of the loss and the way he coped, and he had found some sobering things. Not everyone experiences grief the same way, there is no set way of dealing with it. Acceptance isn't the end of it all. It's supposed to be a messy process, but most of all, the five steps aren't supposed to be steps. They are just common occurrences and feelings for those who have lost a loved one, not a set order or path. 

Youngjae's sobered look quickly turns to mischievous as he pokes Bambam's side and makes him jump a little to the left, away from the boiling noodles thankfully. 

"You know who was mad and filled with wrath when Mark passed? Jaebum hyung." His tone is light, and the younger male can't help but giggle at him and his silliness. 

"I mean, you're not wrong," he says, grinning at the elder male as he pulls the noodles off the stove and tries to split them up into the two bowls on the table. It's a hilarious sight, because you have quite possibly the most innocent human being on the planet pouring noodles into bowls with the words "Fuck it" written on the sides, and as a result he giggles.

"Honestly he seems so relaxed and then you piss him off and its like-"

Youngjae isn't able to finish before the black haired boy is shouting, "HYUNG DON'T KILL US PLEASE?"

"Exactly!"

A long string of giggles leaves the both of them, to the point where Youngjae actually falls on his ass, his long fingers grabbing Bambam's shirt and pulling him down as well, until they are both wrestling on the ground. Inevitably, Youngjae wins, seeing as he is bigger and stronger, straddling the other boys tummy and leaning his hands on the others chest.

"Isn't anger one of those sin things?", the elder asks, looking down at the black haired boy, still huffing out little giggles on the floor. 

"The seven capital vices?" It's the main thing he knows them by, and besides, he has a hard time saying deadly right even after 8 years living in Korea. His tongue just wasn’t built for the word, it seems.

"Yeah, whatever you just called them," Youngjae says flippantly, climbing off of Bambam to grab one of the noodle filled bowls. The black haired boy follows suit, stuffing noodles into his mouth before asking a question.

"Which one do you think you would be?"

The taller male seems dumbfounded, thinking for a couple moments as he eats before eventually mumbling, "I think I would probably be Gluttony."

The younger male nods, because it really does make sense-- Youngjae is pretty much the biggest eater in his friend group, with Jackson being the only one to compete at all. The boy would eat anything, and he was almost always hungry. The only reason he isn't fat is because Jackson drags him out on runs and to the gym as well as the fact that he sometimes dances with Bambam late into the night. That dancing might also be why the younger male is actually a walking toothpick, ready to be snapped by someone stronger than him. 

"I think you would be either Vanity or Greed," Youngjae adds, and the younger boy chokes on his noodles at the declaration. Greed? He just wants enough to keep himself going, and maybe he really wants Mark back, but what else about him is really greedy? Anyone would want his hyung back, anyone would say do anything to keep a loved one from death.

His entire profession choice, forensic criminology, is dedicated to helping others get justice they deserve, and often getting little credit in return. Still, he could see it.

"Well, I always thought I would be Vanity," he says, and the other male nods in agreement, an evil little grin on his lips. 

"You really are vain. You do know some people are prettier, but still, you think you are the fucking shit." They both burst out into more giggles, leaning on one another as they set empty bowls on the counter, their movie completely forgotten to the conversation at hand.

"First- You cussing always reminds me of a small child cussing. Second- I /am/ the shit, have you seen me? I'm pretty as hell." The black haired boy offers a killer smile, showcasing plump lips and a well sculpted nose that has Youngjae giving an obnoxious yet adorable laugh, so contagious that the thin boy falls into even more laughter with him. This is why he loves hanging out with Youngjae, they just get along and the younger boys innocent humor always has them both giggling and feeling better. 

"Markie is totally pride," Bambam says once he can breathe again and isn't giggling like crazy, both of their legs tangled on the floor of Youngjae's big kitchen.

"Honestly! Always all about keeping his record clean and upholding his morals- if he didn’t have those stone set morals you both would have been kissing sooner and I wouldn’t have had to listen to you and your pinning for so long." It was true-- the Thai born boy had whined and moped and fawned over Mark to Youngjae for months, even after they started dating. About how pretty he was, how smart and reliable he was, but also how he got teased and cuddled aggressively so he wouldn’t get up, and how he just wanted to get kisses on things other than boo boo's and hurts.

They end up sitting in a comfortable silence for a few moments, leaning on one another and thinking, Youngjae's contagious smile never leaving. For once thinking of Mark isn't overthrown with the sad tinge surrounding his existence. Instead the tinge turns it softer for both of them and makes them happy. 

"There's no question about what Jackson is, right?", Bambam says after a moment of their silence, turning to the elder boy with an evil little grin.

"Lust."

"Lust through and through," he agrees, a grin on his lips before the aforementioned person wanders into the room, blonde hair pushed back into that fuck boy look that had pretty much everyone hot and bothered for him. Well, those who didn’t know him. Those who knew him well, like the duo on the floor, really just want to fuck up his hair and see those adorable eyes smiles pop up, although the result would probably be Bambam getting carried around while screaming and Youngjae being stuck with a clingy room mate for the rest of the day.

"So what's his name again?", the blonde asks into the phone in his hand, one with a Scooby doo case on it--quite the classic by anyones standards, especially the two floor boys. "Joshua Hong? Okay, where did you say we would meet up?" Jackson, without even a second thought, plops down on the younger two males tangled legs, earning a small yet loud corous of 'ow's and groans, which has the male covering Youngjae's mouth to shut him up. The boy always was one of the loudest in their group, especially when yelling or laughing. "Kay, so he's the kid with the long ass neck who isn't Taekwoon? Got it-- be there a two tomorrow!" 

Jackson hangs up the phone, letting go of Youngjae's mouth only to fall across the taller males chest with a grin. "So you are going to show a new person around covered in temporary tattoos?", the youngest asks in reference to the last snippets of conversation he heard and the fact that Jackson is quite literally covered in flowers and birds, all of which are temporary tattoos. 

The blonde nods, pointing to a tweety bird on his cheek and saying, "Yep! Who could be intimidated by a guy with a cartoon bird on his cheek? No one, that’s who!" 

"I think I'm more intimidated by the sheer number of these guys all over you than by your arms themselves," Youngjae butts in, grabbing Jacksons arm and sticking it out in front of both of them, showcasing the one real tattoo the elder male has, as well as the two or three dozen temporary ones across his skin.

"Hey! You have just as many as I do!", he blonde says, turning to point at Youngjae and earn an annoyed smile from him.

"He does? Where are they?", Bambam asks, head tilting to the side as he tries his best to get his legs out from under Jackson. It doesn’t appear that there are any on Youngjae at the moment, but then again, the other boy is wearing long sleeves like usual, so that could be hiding the fact that his skinny arms are covered in them.

"Hey, I didn’t put them on myself! You put them on me when I was sleeping," Youngjae says, pushing Jackson off and onto the white tile of the floor. The blonde whines and flops around before sitting up, pushing Youngjae over and across Bambam's lap with a loud squawk, causing the black haired boy to yelp.

It doesn’t take long for Bambam to start checking Youngjae for tattoos, first checking on his tummy to find a couple stars and a pink skull, and then pulling on his collar to see a ton of the little buggers between his shoulder blades. "Oh my god Jackson hyung, you used so many! It's like he has a little garden on his back," he coos, and the dark haired boy in his arms starts to wiggle away.

"That’s what I was going for!", Jackson shoots back, grinning form ear to ear while the tallest of the three, Youngjae, pouts like a young child. 

After a lot more banter on the kitchen floor, Jackson asks about why the two younger boys aren't in the living room, watching whatever movie they had decided on, and the pair are a little embarrassed to admit that they forgot. That embarrassment is at first pointed out and then soothed by the shorter boy, who ruffled both their heads of dark hair and sends them off to eat, although he follows quickly after with drinks and snacks. Water for Youngjae, who has somehow managed to live his whole life without having ever had soda, lemonade for Bambam, who likes bitter flavors like lemon more than the often sweet tangs of carbonated drinks, and Cranberry Juice for Jackson, because why on earth would he drink something normal, ever?

They get settled, Bambam on one end, Jackson on the other, Youngjae at first settled between them but soon laying across both of their laps. They never do end up watching the voice they had intended, Cinderella, instead binging a Disney channel show called Andi Mack, which has all of them giggling, but mostly Jackson. After all, he is the only one fluent in English, and the Korean subtitles might not be the funniest things on earth. What c earth. They can't blame the people though, at least they tried their best. Translating is hard as heck people. 

It's between episode eight and nine that Youngjae asks Jackson about what his phone call had been about, head tilted from in the blonde boys lap and causing him to laugh.

"Oh, just another foreign exchange student that I'm going to show around campus," he explains, shrugging a little, and it makes sense. Bambam isn't even sure why his hyung had asked the blonde, he was always the welcoming committee's go to guy, as well as the exchange programs number one.

"Joshua, right? Sounds English. Is he from America, or just a faker like you?", the tallest teases, earning a flick to the forehead and a grin from Jackson.

"Oh shush up, I'm not a faker, I just like to be called Jackson! But anyways, he is from America. L.A. specifically, just like Mark hyung," he says, ruffling Youngjae's hair, which is getting a little too long for him, but it's not really a problem just yet. 

"Cool- Oh! Commercials over! We gotta see what Cyrus is gonna do next," he boy exclaims, and the conversation stalls, but Bambam's mind doesn't, because now he is missing Mark and his adorable American accented Korean. The way he switched between Korean, English and Chinese so effortlessly when talking with Jackson. How he would help with his pronunciation early on and didn’t mind the mistakes he often made. 

It's only been a few weeks sense he got the other males last notebook back, and while it left him quite sad for a few days, he did feel lighter in a way. He got the last of his Markie back. He got to know and see the last thing he wrote down, got to see his last thoughts, and that’s all he could possibly have asked for. He would still do anything to have Mark back, to comb back that soft red hair and kiss his forehead, but that’s not going to happen, and he can live with it. He can get to be more okay.

The happiness that he lost before is starting to come back full force, and while he is always going to miss Mark, maybe that's not what his whole life has to revolve around. He can be okay. 

Mark would have liked that.


	8. Chapter 8

Joshua has a strange handle on ghosts and what he thinks of them. At least, that’s what people have told him 

 

The holy spirit is a ghost, after all, and that spirit came down to earth, but when Jesus came back he was not a ghost but a real human being. As a young boy, he couldn’t seem to get his mind around that, especially with the small amount of pop culture that seemed to encroach on his little 8 year old life. 

 

The concept as many people think of it has never made sense to him. 

 

That ghost of your grandmother who came back to say hello makes no sense to him what so ever. Why would god let one elderly woman come visit on a whim? It its illogical unless she is a guardian angel now. Why would an angle stand still in her own home for eons, and why would god just let that happen? He didn’t accept that version of ghosts at all. 

 

No, his version of ghosts are much more logical-- they are simply angels come down to visit, speak to people and guide them through life with advice, and those who don't experience them simply have no need for their guidance. It explains everything to him. Why the bad ghosts scare people and need priests to come down and say hello, to prove peoples faith rather than their own. After all, why have demons if you don’t use them? Lucifer was an angel too, and still listens to god. 

 

In his mind, there is a reason for everything, even the weird occurrences in his life, everything has a reason. That reason, in his eyes, is god. His god for him, and for others, their own gods. 

 

But what about those who don’t have a god, many have asked him. They have a reason too. 

 

Atheists-- oh he doesn’t like that word, it makes him worried purely out of habit, one his parents instilled in him, and its not like he has a problem with them. But atheists have a reason. If someone with no religious tries to help someone, what reason do they do it for? 

 

They do it for themselves, out of the kindness and goodness of their own hearts, not to appease god or someone else. It is because they are truly good inside. 

 

In some ways, Joshua strives to be like them. When he sees people in need, it is not the striving to be seen as good in gods eyes that drives him to help, it is his own kindness. In those times, he pretends that his god does not exist, and instead offers his own help in gods place. Afterwards there is definitely apologies to his lord, but he thinks its how he should live, and if he hasn’t had brushes with ghosts to tell him he is doing wrong, he does not intend to change. If god is okay with him, then he is okay with him, but he doesn’t tell his parents as much. His parents would kill him. 

 

Devout Christians, that’s what they are, strict and demanding of perfection, manufacturing a perfect son with perfect grades. The stick was a part of his childhood as much as reciting bible verses and choir practice were, because even if he didn’t mean to, he upset them with his questions. Questions about other religions, about imperfections in the bibles words, about things they deemed should not be thought of. He soon learned to keep them to himself, especially after he got in trouble for asking a teacher why people get possessed if the devil is controlled by god. He really kept quiet after that, and he was only in second grade. 

 

It's not like he had a bad childhood by any means, he had fun with his friends and spent lots of time reading, got good grades, and after about third grade, learned how to avoid the stick almost entirely by keeping quiet and being his polite self. There were lots of days where he would ask to stay in and sit in his room, learning from thesauruses and dictionaries, non fiction and novels and every genre of book. His parents never checked his books for negative influences, in that aspect, they really trusted him, and maybe shouldn’t have. He took advantage of that freedom to learn everything he could about other religions, and dispite his devout Christianity, he always thought that there must be a reason why others believed what they did. He read everything he could about every religion he could find. Hindi, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Egyptian culture, Greek gods and Roman ones, Scientology, Kingston clans and cults, absolutely everything religious. 

 

It was always fun to him, not like he was reading stories that he found laughable, but like he was truly learning and expanding on other cultures and how they worked. It made him feel happy, but he could never explain that to his parents, so he kept it to himself and they never knew. 

 

When he got his first laptop at age 15, after three months of working hard for it and earning his parents trust, the first thing he did after making an email was look up a list of all the Hindu gods he could think of, and it wasn’t one of the parental locks on his computer, so no one was any wiser. Still, it's suffocating keeping how you really feel inside, especially for twenty two years, so when he is given the chance to go to South Korea on a four year scholarship, he has a whole presentation ready about it. He won't have to train to be a priest or anything like that anymore, but they don’t know that that isn't what he wants to be. They don’t take much convincing, actually, and think he should learn about the world that god created. 

 

Maybe they should have taken more convincing, because maybe this wasn’t a good idea, and /maybe/ he is really scared getting on a plane for the first time in his short, sheltered life. Flying god knows how many miles in the air in the middle of the night? No, no no no not his thing. His heart is already ready to bust, and he hasn’t even boarded the plane yet. 

 

His mother hugs him, a tight hug from her tiny frame, and he hugs her back, although not as tightly, because he knows how frail she could be. His left cheek is shattered in pink kisses, across his skin so that later, once in the terminal, he will probably have to fix his makeup, but he doesn’t mind. She means well. His father offers him a smile and a gruff, "Make sure to come home for Christmas," and then he heads off. Before he knows it he is walking down the little ramp to the plane, his makeup fixed and his big carry on in hand. His whole life packed into this bag and the two suitcases that he saw being loaded onto this plane just a moment ago. It's weird how small his life is still, even as an adult who can legally drink, who can drive and be on his own. His world is still so small. 

 

Hopefully it won't be so small once he is in South Korea. He wants to live a real life, share his opinions and speak to people about theirs without the oppression that his Christian peers and family bestow on every situation. 

 

Not all Christians like other Christians, as you can probably tell. He doesn’t hate them, it's just that their one track mind can be a little overbearing, and doesn’t allow for certain opinions. 

 

12 hours, a nap and two novels later, he is in a another terminal, this one smattered with signs in a language he can read but not write in very well. His heritage, a country of people who could share his ancestors, and he can't even write in the language that well, and still has a few troubles with it. At least he won't have to rely on himself and his terrible sense of direction once he gets to the campus. Then he will have some help-- at least that's what the program leader told him. 

 

The driver he asked for is there on time, a smiling woman with soft looking hair, and they get his bag in the back quickly. Everything about her is quick-- her stride, her words, how she drives and moves. Efficient and precise, because it's obvious that she has been doing this for a while. He stumbles over his words, apologizing several times and offering the address he has written down on the paper, smiling at her as she chatters on and on in quick Korean. Thank his parents for making sure he could speak the language almost fluently, but that doesn’t mean he speaks much, too afraid of stumbling over his words or seeming rude. 

 

It doesn’t take long to get to the campus, and he sits right in the quad, on a little bench, his black sweater a little too big, still smelling of the salt air by his home, waiting patiently for the person to show up and help him find things. He really does need help. The open area is bustling, people running around with bags on their shoulders and stacks of books in hand, the library cycling more people through its doors than would even walk by the libraries back at home. Groups of students move around, chattering and passing boys to one another, others are in pairs, quizzing one another with note cards in hand. Still others don’t seem to care, bags gone from their shoulders as they complain about classes loud enough for Joshua to here from his bench. 

 

In some ways, it's like home, but in others it really isn't. 

 

He has never seen the students in his schools care so much about grades, care so much about anything other than maybe god or sports, and for some people, even weed. There's a girl crying off to one side, sobbing to her friend about how she got a C on her last paper, and he wants to comfort her, but he doesn’t want to butt in. He still has to get used to the shift in culture, so he isn't sure if it's even acceptable to do as much. 

 

In some kind of attempt to tune out the world and calm to fast beating of his heart, he pulls out his phone, scrolling through his YouTube music suggestions until he finds something of interest and puts it on. It turns out to be something by a group called Nirvana, and it’s a voice he recognizes from the only house part he has ever been too. 

 

That was not a great night. 

 

He remembers how he had asked his parents if he could go, his skinny 16 year old self standing with wide, curious eyes, waiting to see how they would react. In the end, they let him go, knowing that the boy was from church and seemed to be a go kid. Boy were all three of them very wrong. He had walked there at about 6 pm, and in less than ten minutes it was all too much. The loud music, the overwhelming smell of something stale and disgusting which he later learned was vodka, the amount of people who seemed to be acting like children, it was just so much for someone as sheltered as he was. He had never been to a real party, he had been sent to private Christian schools all his life and never met very many non-Christian kids, so being surrounded by screaming, drunk people was way too much. 

 

He was just about to leave when a girl, who was definitely drunk at the time, came up and asked him if he knew where her sister was. 

 

"Uh--I'm sorry, but I don't. What does she look like?", he had asked while the weak kneed, worried girl grabbed his wrist in her hands. 

 

"She's kinda short, my height, and he has pretty brown hair-- will you help me find her?", he had asked, and he didn’t understand why she seemed to scared about it. He couldn’t just walk away from her or the part after that, so he held her hand and they walked around for a good fifteen minutes before they found the girl on the porch, even more drunk than her sister and smoking a cigarette. 

 

"Minji!", the girl had yelled, running over to the one smoking and practically attacking her with a hug. He never got a thanks, and he never asked for one either, but he ended up helping out a few other people who definitely seemed to need it. 

 

When he got home, he sat down on his knees at his parents feet and said that he was sorry for not coming home right away. He smelled like alcohol and cigarettes then, and his heart beat was banging at his ribs with every pump of blood around his body. There was a hell of a bearing for him that night, and he didn’t mind because he felt like he deserves it for wanting to go, but at least he helped a few people out. He later learned that the girl he first helped, who was named Mina, had been worried that her sister would be raped on her own, and he felt that he had done a good thing that night even if he got hit for it. 

 

The next morning he explained to his parents what happened with a calm and shame filled demeanor- 

 

"Hi! Are you Joshua Hong?" 

 

Joshua recoils from the face in front of his own so hard he slams his head against the back of the wooden bench, his body tense from fear and pain as he stares at a smiling face, which quickly turns to one of worry. There is a tweety bird tattoo on the mans cheek, and he realizes his voice is rather deep and pretty compared to his own higher pitched voice. 

 

"Oh, I'm sorry! That had to hurt-- here, let me see," he boy says in English, the same worry on his face now in his words as he puts his hands on his temples and tilts the Los Angeles born males face down, soft dark hair hiding the throbbing pain now in his head. His tenseness doesn't disappear, his heart beating so hard it’s a little hard to breathe, and he wants to pry the hands off of his head but that would be rude so he just doesn’t move. 

 

After a moment or two of checking out his head, the blonde male steps back. "Looks like you're okay. So you /are/ Joshua, right? Or am I just invading a random persons space?" 

 

All the black haired boy can do is nod and turn the music in his hears off, although he heard every word rather clearly seeing as he never had his music on very loud. He may not be the most experienced, but he knows how to stay safe in a messed up city like Los Angeles. He realizes the nod does nothing to answer the question, so he manages to stutter, "Yeah, I'm Joshua- it's nice to meet you." He scampers to his feet, bowing to the other male and earning a snort of laughter at his lightly accented Korean. 

 

"Oh my gosh that’s adorable-- you bow so low how cute," the blonde boy coos, and already Joshua feels like he fucked up. Don’t most people in Korea bow at about a ninety degree angle to new people as a sign of respect? Or was that just a Korean thing perpetuated by the way his church was? His cheeks and neck heat up to a bright red and he wants to curl up and disappear, the way he usually does in social situations. It feels like his stomach has turned heavy even though it had been almost a full day sense he last ate. 

 

"Sorry," he mumbles, offering another bow, although he makes sure this one isn't quite so low, hoping that he won't be judged so harshly on this one. Well, he wasn’t judged harshly to begin with, but it kind of felt like it to him. That might just be his mind overworking itself to an unreasonable extent. The reason behind that it the change in the blonde males expression. 

 

"No no, it's fine! I didn’t mean to embarrass you," the deep voiced male says quickly, putting his hands up like he's trying to offer no pressure to Joshua, but that only makes him more worried. "My names Jackson Wang," the other offers at his silence, sticking out one hand, "It's nice too meet you too." 

 

Joshua glances down at the others dark eyes and takes his hand gently with both of his own, deciding to stick with what he knows of his own culture from church, although its not much. He is a third generation American born Korean, after all, and much of what he grew up in was Christianity in its more Western incarnation. 

 

The red in his cheeks hasn't faded, even as he stands up straight again, but he tries his best to offer a small smile to Jackson, and the other boys face lights up in return. "Okay Joshie, let's get you to your new home!", Jackson says brightly, grabbing one of the two black suitcases and waiting for the other to grab his things. Joshua tugs his big blue carry on onto his shoulder and grabs his bag, looking small compared to the luggage in a way that this new boy Jackson doesn't seem too, even though he is the shorter of them both. 

 

The black haired boy isn't sure when the blonde starts chattering about the campus, their music program, which the other boy is in, how pretty the library is and how its open all night and all day, the cherry blossom trees that line the paths outside, and once he gets caught on the others voice he can't stop listening. How the music program is good, and how he feels like his friend Youngjae should in face be in it too. How the other male doesn’t often go into the library and has a number of fines he has to pay off soon so that he can get books and study for exams. How Jackson knows the dark haired boy leaning against one of those cherry blossom trees, and the LA boy glances over to see a thin male sitting across from another sleeping boy and waving to Jackson. His eyes turn down, knowing that the wave isn't ment for him, and he continues to keep quiet even as Jackson begins to hum to himself. He wonders if the shorter male is able to be quiet, not because he wants him to quiet down, but because he wonders how someone has the confidence to male noise continuously. 

 

It takes several minutes for him to work up the courage to speak to the other again, knowing he has barely said more than ten words to the other and simply listened. With anxiety pressing up on his lungs and pushing the breath from them, he asks a quiet, "So...what's your major Jackson-ssi?" 

 

The blonde turns to look back at him, those dark eyes drinking up at the corners. "I'm in music composition. My minor is dance," he says with a grin, seemingly excited that the skinny boy is speaking to him at all, and even through the tightness in his chest, he feels happy to see such a smile on the other. "What about you? What did you fly across an ocean to come do here in Korea?" He knows he is being teased, and there's a bittersweet feeling of anxiety and safety that floods him with that fact. He doesn’t think Jackson is going to judge him, but he doesn’t know. 

 

"I came here to study early childhood development. I want to be a pre-school teacher one day," he explains quietly, pulling down the lower hem of his black sweater nervously before adding, "I plan to minor in world religions as well." That's probably the first time he has said as much to anyone, even his parents don’t know about his minor, although its not like they cared to ask. They cared more about whether he would be going to church or not. 

 

"Aww, that’s cute. Do you like to be around kids? What am I saying, of course you do," Jackson chatters happily, smiling over at the other boy. 

 

"Yeah, I like to hang out with children. I taught Sunday school back in LA every week." 

 

"Nice. I'm sure you will be a great teacher," Jackson says before throwing his hands in the air in front of a big blue building. "We have arrived! Do you know your dorm number, Joshie?" 

 

He nods, feeling a little more comfortable around the other as he pulls out a little back of folded papers, flipping to find his dorm number. "E-7," he says after a moment, putting the packet back into his bag and following Jackson inside. 

 

Maybe South Korea won't be that bad. Hopefully it won't be.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okie so  
> 1) I might start writing notes n stuff because words that aren't structured are fun and people might also want to know what the fuck is going on with this whole thing so, yeeee  
> 2) No one will be able to tell in the slightest, but I have changed a number of things, plot wise, for the future of whatever the fuck this is (beware, it's going to be way too damn long) 
> 
> Okay, yeah. Hope you enjoy this :-)

The next morning is a good one for Bambam. It isn't a sad one, at least not as much as usual. 

He wakes up to Pudding sleeping a few inches from his face, his body turned in the opposite direction that it normally is, and the sight of that cat has him smiling before his eyes are even fully open. It's almost as good as ghost minty toothpaste kisses. Almost. 

After a few minutes of blowing on his little cat, her big eyes blink open and she doesn’t get up right away, instead sneezing on him and causing the black haired boy to explode into happy, sleepy giggles. He sits up a little and smiles at her sweet face, trying to stifle the last of his giggles as she gets up, and his skinny fingers reach out to scratch under the cats little chin. "Hello my princess. Did you sleep well," he whispers lightly, smiling at her little face with pure joy. 

She wanders off after a short time, but his morning mood has been decided by now, sitting up with a happy smile and only the vaguest sense of unhappiness deep in his soul, right at the bottom of his heart. It's easy to push off as he looks over and almost immediately falls face first into his hyungs spot, breathing in the smell of pure Mark, letting it brush against his unwashed skin and smiling lips. Today will be a good day. He wants it to be, and so he won't let anything upset him. He can be okay again. He can be okay without Mark. Yes he misses him, he always will, but now he has himself and his pets, his friends and family, and that’s enough for him to slowly move on. 

He heads to shower, stepping into the stream of water while its still cold and letting out startled giggles at the low temperature, having not anticipated it. That’s okay. He washes his hair, watching the last hints of the left over dye on his head wash away in grey tinted bubbles, but the pigment has been in his hair long enough to stick, so loosing that last bit doesn’t do anything to the shiny black of it. 

Mark always liked him with black hair. He said it made him more diverse, so he could go from 'cutie pie to hot ass boy in ten seconds flat'. It was a deadly duality his hyung had said at the time. The red haired boy said that him with blonde was much hotter, and during the times when he did have blonde he found that he could make his hyung stutter with a look and turn him into a blushing mess at all hours. That was definitely a fun time. 

He still remembers the first time that he dyed his hair. It was a Tuesday and he had just gotten back from a friends house after school. He was only 16, and the both of them had only been living together for about two or three months when he walked in with his hair a sunny blonde, not bleached but darker, more honey in tone, with purple and green streaked through it. 

He had walked into the house without a second thought, having let his friend Mingyu bleach it for him and then use left over dyes to do the streaks. Mark had been at the table, headphones in, that red mop of hair tinged with dark brown at the roots after three months without another dye job. It took almost an hour of them sitting at the table together, doing homework and studying before the other looked up and practically screamed about the change.

It was a high pitched scream that had Bambam falling out of his chair with a thump, head popping up over the edge of the table again after a moment to see a scared Mark hiding behind his chair.

"What happened to your head?", the other had asked in a squeaky voice, and he couldn't help but bust out into giggles and bonk his forehead on the table.

"I bleached it hyung. Can't you tell? Or is it just normal for Americans to suddenly have their hair colors change without any reason?", he had asked, crawling up into his chair with a cute little grin on his lips. The other boy had cautiously shaken his head, moving back into his chair slowly and then flicking Bambam's head after another few moments.

"Hyung!"

"Next time tell me so I can make sure you don’t hurt your scalp."

"…wait, what?"

"You heard me. Next time I'm keeping an eye on you and bleaching that head for you so you don't hurt your scalp."

"But hyung," he had protested, both hands rested on the edge of the table to lift himself up a little more, "Mingyu-ah does his hair all the time! He knows what he's doing, there's no need to worry."

"Bambam…" That authoritative voice. The tiny blonde didn’t have it in him to protest anymore so he just pouted and gave a nod, going back to work.

Later that night when they laid down to go to bed, without the pillow wall-- that had gone away after about a week-- Mark had run his fingers through the bleached strands gently and found them still soft. "Mingyu did good. It suits you," he had mummed, and the smile on the youngers face had brought one to the elder boys own in seconds. 

"Thanks hyung."

He finds himself smiling at the mirror with dripping hair, and is quick to dry himself, walking back to the bed room and doing something that isn't the norm for him. He walks over to the other dresser, still filled with neatly folded clothes, all smelling like Mark, only one or two sweaters rumpled from the times he has pulled them out just to feel close to his hyung. He grabs one of those, a yellow one with doughnuts on it that is a little to big on him and pulls it on, getting on some of his own jeans and enjoying the way that the world smells like Mark now. The feeling he gets as he leans against the wooden dresser is bittersweet. He feels at home again, like his security has returned and he can be okay, but at the same time there's a bitterness to that safety because it's ever so false. It's like cranberry juice, but not the crappy overly sugary crap, the good kind that’s a little bitter yet still has that sweetness to it.

Even with the bitterness on his tongue from knowing his human safety blanket isn't there, he still finds himself smiling, happy beyond reason today for seemingly no reason other than the sight of his cute little kitty. It's a nice change, and in the end he goes along with it, letting the smile rest on his lips as he goes about his morning, grabbing books from the living room couch and the table to put into his bag by the door, feeding first his kitties and his doggo, and then the sugar glider warbling softly in his room. 

As he finishes getting little Shabu-shabu fed, he feels something brush between his shoulder blades, and then bump there again, looking back to find that Gumiho has abandoned the kitchen and instead is sniffing his sweatshirt. He isn't the only one who misses Mark and his smell, because she sits down on her haunches at his side and makes a noise close to a whimper, high pitched and almost questioning. 'Where is Mark?', he can practically hear her asking in the voice he imagines her to have, a soft sweet one that gets excited often, but now he can imagine it as solemn as her dark eyes. 

"You miss him too girlie?", he asks gently, reaching out to scratch under her chin, which she leans into, his own skinny frame turning to look at her and rub that big head of hers. His forehead comes to rest against her head, right by her ear, a softer smile on his lips now, bittersweet too as he whispers, "It's good to know I'm not the only one." 

Bittersweet, that’s a better word for his morning. It fits.

They sit like that for a while until she paws lightly at his chest and he sits up to find her licking his cheek, and he lets out a warbling coo at her before the husky meanders off to wherever she wants to be. Oh to be a house pet for a day. 

In a short while he heads to the bathroom once more, no coffee in his system as he plops down on the toilet and starts to do his makeup, looking in the mirror the whole time. It's really not much-- mainly eyeliner and lip tint, to make him feel more confident in himself and how he looks. For once his face isn't grief riddled behind his dark bangs, a soft happiness back that does wonders to make him look younger. No makeup can fix stress, unhappiness or grief, it seems, but a smile really can. Only a real one though, anything else is bullcrap and belongs in the trashcan along with all the other fake things in life. 

It's not long before he heads out, no breakfast in his system, nor any caffeine. Instead, there is a spring in his step, and once he gets to class, Youngjae can definitely see the difference in his younger friends demeanor. 

"How's it goin Bam?", he asks, dark bangs flopping into his eyes as he looks on curiously, his own notebook already out, filled to the brim with scribbled notes that look like chicken scratch to everyone but Youngjae himself.

"Pretty okay. What about you Jae?", he asks, pulling his legs up and crossing them on the blue foldable chair, looking over at his dark haired hyung. He seems a little apprehensive about the change, but anyone would be when their friend had been so sad for so long, at least when meeting up. It's not that Bambam couldn’t be happy, it just took a little bit of a pull from his friends to get it out, and then he was back to his happy self. Rarely was he this okay and happy at first though.

"Pretty good. Jaebum hyung is coming over later to help me study for a test in Anatomy -- he's so good at this stuff, I wish I were half as smart as him," the other boy says, looking a little sad that he had to rely on Jaebum for help, when in reality they all relied on him. Bambam had more so done that with Mark, but sometimes both of them would go to the serous boy for aid and would get the biggest eye rolls ever before Jaebum turned into a squishy fuckin baby around Mark.

"Well, he is an accountant after all, so he is good at math-- something that none of us get. You have more on him in the writing and science department for sure though, Youngie. He just mastered studying techniques," he offers happily, ruffling the others hair and earning a little tickling to his ribs as payback, even though the other loves to have his hair messed with.

Their professor enters, and while Youngjae really doesn’t need to take this class to be a pediatrician, he does it as a minor, and to be with Bambam, seeing as they are pretty much thick as thieves and have been sense the end of high school.

Class goes by rather quickly, the black haired boy not paying the world any mind as he writes notes and offers his attention to the lesson at hand and the upcoming test dates he needs to study for, which he writes on his hand to make sure he won't forget. By the last three minutes of class, his fingers are cramping badly and he can barely finish the last slide, but he does it, shaking out sore fingers afterwards before waving Youngjae goodbye-- the elder has three consecutive classes today with only minutes between them, like he does every week on Tuesday. Bambam is left on his own to gather his things and leave, sticking supplies in willy nilly and pulling the bag onto his shoulder once more, ready to head home. 

He is doing just that, enjoying the clouds that don’t seem as drippy anymore and the flowers who's colors have become closer to the happy medium they once were, when he stumbles across a sight he was not expecting today. Not just a sight-- a person. One with chapped lips, dark bangs and perfect nails. The nervous smile is gone from his lips now, looking blissful and happy, although he definitely shouldn't be where he is. Jinyoung is asleep, dead to the world with his back leaned up against one of the cherry blossom trees on campus, right in the middle of the quad. Well, not in the middle, it's along the main path out of the circle, but that’s not what's important, what's important is that the other boy is asleep with his headphones in, in a place where he could easily be mugged or attacked or worse, even if it's a public place. Not many would do something like that, but in South Korea, there are no laws that say you are allowed to help someone in a bad situation without getting yourself in legal trouble. That was something Mark struggled with. It's something Bambam still struggles with.

It takes a few minutes of standing in grass that’s only a little too green for him to walk over and sit down against the tree across from Jinyoung sleeping form. It's hesitant, like he is worried about how the other will react to a blast of neon yellow in his face when he wakes up, but he does it anyways, so that the other is less likely to be attacked. 

He doesn’t stare at Jinyoung.

That’s not just him being sarcastic, or saying he isn't and then admitting he is, Bambam genuinely finds nothing to stare at in Jinyoung. Yes, he is handsome, but Korea is filled with beautiful people who have had plastic surgery. Instead of watching him sleep, he pulls out one of his notebooks, re-reading pages and pages of notes, re-writing things that make little sense but he still gets an idea about and fixing words that are unrecognizable. It's a slow process, one that fills up his time, but in the pauses between pages and headers of notes, he glances up to make sure Jinyoung is okay and they are both safe, a habit he had developed with Mark, to ease the red heads anxieties. 

A faint yell catches his attention, and he turns to see his blonde hyung waving at him, Jackson's deep voice recognizable even from so far away. The toned man has a skinny male at his side, looking small with hunched shoulders, both a bag and a suitcase being manned by him, Jackson taking the other. He waves at his hyung, and when the dark haired boys eyes avert to the ground, he is sad he couldn’t wave to him too, knowing just how hard it is to be in a new country without anyone. From personal experience, he is aware of how much a kind smile can mean in that situation. They end up wondering off and he stares after them for a moment, trying to remember the boys name, knowing his family one is Hong, although not the rest of it. 

Soon, with his attention back on his work, Bambam gets lost again in in the notebook, writing more careful now than it was in class so that he can understand himself later. He is so lost he doesn't hear the stiring across from him, doesn’t see dark eyes blinking at him until he gets to another header and looks to the left and right for threats, before finding a pair of dark eyes on his own in a startlingly sudden manor.

"Bambam?", the other asks, blinking and rubbing at his eyes, one headphone having fallen out of his ear to land in the grass. Jinyoung seems relatively relaxed, more curious than anything else.

"Hi…", he mumbles softly, knees moving closer to his chest on instinct already to give the other more room, "Did you sleep okay?"

The question feels awkward to him, very awkward, but the other boy doesn’t seem to mind it, offering a slightly nervous half smile. The sight of someone else's nerves seems to calm his own slightly. "Like crap. First time I've slept in three days," he volunteers quietly, already moving to check the time before standing. "I have to go. Bye. Thanks for watching over me, fellow stalker," he says, voice edging on teasing yet almost nervously, and the black haired boy doesn’t know what to think of his words, watching him go without even offering his own farewells. That was strange, too weird to him, but it was also nice. 

He doesn’t move from his spot after Jinyoung leaves, he just sits there under the cherry blossom trees and does his work, even finding it in himself to start planning out the format for his essay, which he most likely will get done a week before its due. It's slow work, and in the soft pink light that crosses his paper, he can't help but let his mind wander to other places, mainly to Mark, but also to Jinyoung just a little.

In some ways, the other reminds him vaguely of Mark. He is quiet, and seems kind, but he doesn’t know much about him other than what he has seen on the three occasions they have really met. Jinyoung seems nervous, more obviously than his red haired hyung almost ever got, but it doesn’t seem intentionally shown, and he remembers seeing the other on a few occasions in class when he would come in and soothe Mark. Even on those occasions he seemed nervous, although much less so than when they had spoken. 

Somewhere deep in him, under the soft haze of Marks smell and the warm dappled sun on his hair, he feels the urge to get know Jinyoung, to become friends so he has at least someone like his deceased hyung back in his life, although not romantically. It's not an utterly crazy thought-- he isn't asking for him to be the same or become the next Mark, he just wants a little bit of that familiar personality. He isn't ready for romance. Mark was the second relationship he has ever had, and it was perfect by his standards, as perfect as it could get, and he isn't ready to move on. He won't be for a long time. Somewhere even deeper in himself, he feels disgusted with what he is thinking, about finding someone to replace Mark, but no one can do that, truly, and that offers a tiny refuge. But still he is disgusted, and ends up smacking his notebook closed and stuffing it into his bag.

He gets up, his mind still racing, so he puts on some music, a catchy girl group song that he knows the dance too, but his head to too full of thoughts for him to dance right now. 

It's not like he would even have the chance to meet up with the other boy anyways, they are in different departments, they obviously don’t live close to one another seeing as Jinyoung had walked off in the opposite direction, and both of them are too awkward to really be social, it seems. What would they even talk about? Not Mark, that would hurt both of them, not school, because the other might be weirded out by how much he knows about his classes, and anything else would just be too random and probably freak Jinyoung out. 

You know what's sad? He has the same thoughts every time he wants to make friends with a person, and he has sense he was a child, so this isn't even new. With Mark it had been worse seeing as he had a crush on the elder from the beginning, so this isn't as bad, but still he is starting to over think and maybe he should just break out into dance now in the middle of the street? He doesn’t, because even he is not that random, but he does change directions to head to the dance studio he goes to every couple days, and spends hours there, dancing to anything and everything he can think of that will tire him out. 

Dance gives him a much needed escape from his thoughts, but not girl-group dances, which he loves because often they are cutest and fun, but much more difficult ones, such as Monsta X and Infinite, which he practices repeatedly until he has every move just right. By the end, the shirt he changed into is soaked with sweat, as is his dark hair, and he can barely stand on his skinny legs, back pressed to the mirrors as he slides down it. His breaths are short, and as his head falls back he finds that without music playing, the room seems to be filled with static, kind of like the static in his muscles as they recoup from their workout. He sits for only a few minutes before standing and grabbing his bag once again, Marks sweater folded and stuffed into a side pocket so it would be safe, the still sweaty boy starting to make his way out of the building and back home.

It doesn’t take him more than a minute after entering his home to find his little Gumiho sitting by the leash hanger, and he almost immediately feels bad for not taking his poor baby out for her walk, deciding not to care about his sweaty state and instead just take her out. The air outside is starting to cool by now, the sun pulling its shades closed slowly and painting the sky in its dark vibrancy as Gumiho does her business and he turns away like always to be polite. He learned that from his red haired love a long time ago and has continues to do so ever sense. Maybe it also makes him feel like a gentleman, which he likes.

Everyone can enjoy being a gentleman. 

That thought brings another little smile to his tired lips.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joshua gets settled in his new home with the help of a very kind Jackson, and I get the chance to indulge myself in a cute ship that has no legit works for it yet :-)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all my trash, and sorry if all this is bad, but I'm kind of just writing for me because it makes me happy, so that's that  
> Thank you for reading and if you actually enjoy it, then I'm really glad!  
> Also, I just realized that the number of languages I said Jackson knows is not accurate,so forgive me but I'm not going back to fix it  
> That's too much work

 

The dorm is a lot bigger than Joshua had anticipated it would be for two people.

You walk right into the bed room, which he had expected, but off to one side there is a little kitchen, and a bathroom, plus a closet and two dressers. It is actually a really cute little place with some space to walk around and be okay, which is quite a relief.

"Welcome to your new home!", Jackson announces, throwing out his arms and almost whacking Joshua in the nose, causing him to flinch back from the action on instinct. The blonde doesn’t seem to notice, walking right in and pulling along one if the suitcases with him, leaving Joshua standing in the doorway with wide eyes, frozen to the spot. He notices there is no one else in the room, nor do there appear to be any possessions anywhere, and he then wonders why he has no room-mate. Luckily, Jackson is there to explain without being asked.

"Your new roomie, Minghao, should be here from China in the next few weeks, so til then you have the whole place to yourself," he explains brightly, ploping down on one of the two beds, and Joshua gives a quiet nod, walking in after him and slipping his shoes off by the door. "So Joshie, shall we go check out the campus, or do you wanna get unpacked first? If you do, I can help," Jackson offers with a huge smile as the taller boy sets his bag down at the foot of the bed, the same one the blonde is sitting on at that moment.

"I'm good with whichever," he says softly, leaning against the bed post and taking a sweep of the room from this angle. There are two little bedside tables and a number of shelves on each side, which he can already see himself putting some of the books he brought with him on, and it takes less than thirty seconds for him to get lost in his head, thinking about what to do in the room and how he intended to leave plenty of space for this Minghao. He jolts when one of his suitcases ends up on the bed, making the whole thing shake, including his skinny frame leaned against one of the posts.

"Jesus is this thing heavy," Jackson mumbles, looking over to the black haired boy with his head tilted to the side as he opens up the suitcase before offering, "I unpack, you put things up?" He nods at the suggestion, giving Jackson a little smile as he walks to the other side of the bed, the well built male already handing him a stack of clothes which he recognizes as his dress shirts and slacks for church. There are only four sets of them, seeing as he goes to church three times a week, on Sunday, Saturday and Wednesday. Every other day he dresses normally, watching over and teaching the little kids who come while their parents are at work  or after school. Well, he used to, so it's going to take a while before he can gain the repertoire to possibly do something similar here, if at all. He is going to miss that a lot. He goes over to the dresser and opens up the two middle drawers, seeing as they are arranged in two columns of three, and puts the shirts in one and the slacks in the other.

"You don’t talk much, do you?"

Joshua turns to look at the shorter male from his spot crouching by the dressers, apprehensive about how to respond to the question. He knows he is quiet, he has always been told to be as much and when he wasn’t as a young child, the stick would make its appearance. Silence and quiet observation had been trained into him, so he rarely spoke unless spoken to, especially with new people or those who were his higher ups. Sunbaes, that’s the word, someone more experienced than him in something. Anyways, this question isn't one he had ever expected to be presented with, as many of his peers ignored him in favor of their more outgoing companions.

"I suppose I am…", he admits, looking down in embarrassment, suddenly seeing his quiet nature not as a necessity or accomplishment but as something to be scrutinized by the people here in Korea.

"That’s okay, I can do enough talking for the both of us," Jackson offers kindly, and the tug at the bottom of his heart that it causes only has his cheeks heating to a soft pink, a little noise of affirmation the only thing he can think to produce now. Then there is a stack of clothing being offered to him, and he quickly stands to take it from Jackson.

"Thank you," he mumbles against the fabric stack, which comes almost up to his nose, every article tinged with the smell of salt and sea and sun from his Los Angeles roots. The stack ends up sitting on top of the dresser as he takes the little segments of each clothing type and puts them into drawers where they make sense to him.

"I know I already said my name and did a lot of talking earlier, but I never really gave you a real Jackson Wang introduction, so here goes. My names Jackson, I'm a student from Hong Kong with a love of music and a tendency to be extremely loud most of the time. My GPA is 3.9, I have a room-mate named Youngjae who I will protect with my life, I'm 24 years old and I speak three languages, Mandarin, Korean and English."

Joshua listens and doesn’t turn around, enjoying the deep baritone of the others voice as he organizes and then heads over to grab the next stack of things that Jackson has brought out of the bag-- at least two dozen books of all types and genres. It takes a minute before he can respond, at which time he is facing away from the blonde boy and carefully lining the books along one shelf.

"I'm Joshua, but if it's easier on you, you can also call me Josh or Jisoo. I'm  from America, but of South Korean decent, I'm Christian, I like to be around children," he offers up, but pauses to think of what else to say. He isn't exactly experienced with introductions, other than saying his name, so trying to describe himself has his stomach in knots along with his tongue. "I can play the guitar, I'm 22, and I speak five languages fluently." The black haired boy hides behind his dark bangs as he glances over his shoulder at Jackson, who is grinning ear to ear, seemingly happy that he had gotten the quiet male to say so much in one sitting.

It takes less than a second for Jackson to start spouting off questions, seeing that the door to talking is open and he got Joshua a little out of his shell. "Which five do you speak? Is one of them Chinese? What's your favorite color? Favorite animal and why?"

The number of questions has him left to silence for a moment, lips moving wordlessly as he comes over to take the bag of bathroom things he had packed into his bag, although he stands at the other end of the suitcase for another moment anyways.

"Yeah, Chinese is one of them. The other four are Korean, Jap-… Ah fudge I forgot how to pronounce it…", he walks into the bathroom, still muttering to himself before Jackson offers a helping hand.

"Japanese?"

"Yeah, Japanese! That’s the one. I speak Spanish and English too," he adds, setting the bag by the sink and taking another load of clothing from the other, this time sweaters and jackets mostly. "My favorite color is either black, brown or pink, I can't really decide, and my favorite animals are rabbits because of their little ears," he explains quietly, suddenly nervous once more, although he only gave the information that he was asked for. Too much, or too little? He isn't sure which, and that makes his lungs feel just a little more squished by his ribs than they already were. "Why did you decide to come to Korea?", he blurts to shut up his own head, and it could just as easily have been a question to himself, but he looks over at Jackson to see his response. Somewhere in his heart, he can't stop feeling like Jackson is only talking to him because he has to, but even so, he takes advantage of it to actually get a little social interaction, although he has never really needed much before.

"My mommy wanted me to get a better education so she sent me here," the other explains happily, getting through the last of his clothes as the black haired boy stands up again. It's absolutely adorable to him that such a well toned guy still says 'monmy' like she is the one who hung the sun in the sky just for him, and his nervous heart melts just a little. 

"No offense, but why on earth is everything you own so monochrome? I have seen like two colored shirts and a red tie--that’s it," Jackson asks as he re-folds a jacket that happened to fall on the floor while he was unpacking, a grey one his grandmother got him for his birthday two years earlier. The question has him chewing his lip, not sure how to explain it to someone not in his family. Could he just say that he never really bought his own clothes and his parents kept everything pretty much neutral? That was the case, but would that be a weird way to respond to the question? His lungs get squished a little bit more in his chest even though he knows they are getting plenty of air.

"I guess it just happened," he ends up mumbling, but even his mumbles can be clearly heard in the room, it's just that quiet, "At least everything I own matches without much thought."

"Okay, that makes sense. We should get some color in your wardrobe though, you would look good with some brightness around you," Jackson says lightly, smiling at him before dumping an arm full of socks on the bed and grabbing the other suitcase. He finishes with his clothes, rushing to help the other with the heavy load and getting it on the bed with only a little bit of trouble.

"If you say so," is all he can think to say in response before he opens up the second case, this one actually much lighter, as most of the bottom half is just a big white comforter, stuffed animals and pillows.

"It's a doggo!"

Jacksons smile manages to get wider as he grabs the stuffed dog from its place between the comforter and the edge of the blanket, falling back onto the bed and hugging the little guy. If Joshua weren't used to cute little children running around his ankles all day, he would have cooed about how cute it was, or called Jackson adorable, but he manages to hold back and simply smile at the scene before him.

"Yes, that’s my doggo. I don’t have a real doggo though," he says, trying to be funny and immediately regretting his attempt, his hands moving behind his back to let his fingers cling to one another. In his head and on his wrists, he can practically feel the stick smacking him, his wrist going tingly at the phantom sensation. Not the right thing to say, not the right thing to say, well there you go Joshua, messing everything up and saying stupid things again. No wonder you have so few friends. In his head, he can hear Jacksons low voice telling him he's an idiot, that he--

"Aww, that stinks," the elder male says, sitting up, the stuffed animal still cradled in his lap, "If you like you can come over some time and see my room mates dog, Coco. She's a little cutie-- I think you would like her."

It's the exact opposite of what he expected, and the tingling in his wrist is forgotten momentarily as he watches the other, offering a slow nod in just a few seconds, still afraid that anything and everything he says will cause him to be annoying or seem unworthy. "That sounds nice. What kind is she?", he asks carefully, voice suddenly weaker than before, but he tries to hide it with a little smile. He isn't aware that his smile looks like  it could fall any second.

The other male thinks for a moment, lips pursed as he strokes the top of the stuffed animals head in a comical manor. "I don’t really know. She is a little white dog though-- she yips a lot, but I love her," he says brightly once he has finished thinking, standing up once again and setting the dog down on the bed. "Come on, let's get done here so I can show you around!"

They continue in near silence for a few minutes, the only noise Jacksons soft humming, pulling out at least twenty more books and a full set of blue exorcist manga that the American boy got from his Japanese friend Daiki back in seventh grade. His parents took one look at the name and thought it was holy enough for them, so he was allowed to keep them. A lot of the pages were bent, and the hard covers were a little bumped up at the corners, but over all they were in good condition.

Shoes, notebooks, highlighters and pens, a plastic fork that was accidently put in there for some reason, a bunch of albums and CD's, blankets, his guitar, a little box of sentimental trinkets and a jar filled with tiny origami stars in every color, another thing that Daiki had given him, this one as an Easter gift. In return, Joshua had given him a sketchbook and watercolors, knowing that his hyung was good at drawing and even better at paining.

"Looks like we are about done," Jackson says, grabbing the comforter and pulling it out of the suitcase and on to the bed, having forgotten about the carry on the other has. He isn't about to mention it though, because he can unpack the bag on his own anyways.

"Yeah, looks like it. Thank you for helping," he says kindly, removing the empty suitcase from the bed and unfolding the comforter in three movements, already having the bed made as he puts his pillow up top. He was sure when he left that it would be helpful with getting unpacked as quickly as possible, and it was, so he feels a little proud of himself.

"That right there is a talent," the shorter male says, almost sounding a little awed, but it's not that big of a deal to Joshua, who had been making beds and doing laundry sense he was a little over four years old. Does everyone not do it that way? If not, then how on earth do people make their beds? It's a little baffling to him, and more out of wanting to help than anything else, he turns to Jackson.

"I can show you how, if you like." The vigorous nods that the ekder gives him have the taller male giggling, pushing his bangs to the side and then motioning for the blonde to come closer. "It's how you fold it," he says as Jackson comes to stand at his side, a little close for his comfort but he doesn’t mind much, "You take the bottom corners, and use them to fold whatever you're working with  into thirds." He does exactly what he is explaining, and then folds the long blanket burrito in half so that it’s a blanket taco. "And now you have a ready to unfold blanket," he says, offering Jackson the spot to see if he can do the same. It's really very easy, he just doesn’t think the other has seen it before.

Jackson does as he saw Joshua do just a minute or two prior, and while it takes him a little longer, he gets it down very quickly, earning a little chorus of claps from Joshua. "See, easy right?"

"So much easier than what I was doing before," the blonde says brightly, putting Joshuas pillow back where it was and resting his hands on his hips in a proud manor.

"And now the fun part-- I get to show you around," Jackson announces, earning a look of surprise from the black haired male, but it's replaced by wide eyes as he is taken by his wrists and tugged towards the door. They are soon dropped so that they both have the chance to put their shoes on, and yet another difference between them is brought to his attention-- how they put in their shoes.

Why should something like that matter?

It doesn’t, but with how often the American born boy watches the people around him, he can't help but notice things like that. How they both sit down to put on their shoes, but Jackson slips them on to his socked feet and has to pull the back portion out from under his heel to get them on fully while he takes the time to untie them before sticking his feet in and tieing them again. It leaves him on the floor for a little longer and has the elder taking both of his wrists again, this time a little more gently, and helping him to his feet in a way that he can only call polite and gentlemanly. "Thank you," he says, expecting his arms to now be dropped, but only one is, the other continuing to be held on to as he grabs his phone and holds the door for the shorter man.

"No problem," the other says, pulling him out the door and down the hall excitedly.

The afternoon seems to fly past him, Jackson filling the afternoon with stories and words, jokes and gentle tugs on his skinny wrists, pulling him around town to the places he will have to go and need to know about on campus. He shows him the coffee shops on the east and north sides of campus, filled with students in there for a caffeine fix, he shows him the garden and greenhouse, walks him around the library briefly and says hello to a boy named Namjoon reading in one corner. Through it all, Joshua says very little, finding that being led through such crowded places makes his normally soft voice utterly fail him, so he just nods and watches and listens.

By the time that Jackson says their tour is almost over, he finds that he knows alot more about the other than he would have thought, that he has two siblings, that his mother and father own a chain of restaurants in Hong Kong, that he works two part time jobs and has a future as a lyricist and composer at a nearby entertainment company and a minagery of other things. He likes how open the blonde is about talking about his life, and while some might say its conceited, it really isn't, because it fills the emptiness that Joshua presents with his quiet nature and lack of words.

"Wanna guess where we are going?", Jackson asks, walking backwards down a street that is a little bit less busy than any on campus, but the taller boy still has the instinct to turn him around and guide him through the people so he doesn’t bump into anyone.

"Why don't you just tell me. I've never been very good at guessing games," he says, following the elder male obediently as they turn a corner, and he can't help but marvel at how Jackson sticks the turn even backwards.

"Why not? How is it possible to not be good at guessing games? All you do is make bad guesses until the person tells you," the shorter male asks, spinning around and standing still until Joshua catches up with him, at which point he loops an arm in his. It's a little bit of an awkward change, because the younger had had his hands clasped behind his back out of habit, and the arm looped around his own lifted it up a little strangely.

"My parents say its cause I think too out of the box," he explains quietly, a little cheeky smile tugging at his lips, "But I usually just say that so that people tell me faster." Jackson snorts and pokes his tummy lightly.

"You little shit."

"Language."

"...you're still a little shit."

"Language, Jackson-ssi."

"Fiiine," the elder whines before he bumps his hip into Joshua's own and reaches out to tickle the younger boy. It doesn’t turn out well, because the black haired boy starts screaming and whacks Jackson right in the nose in his fight to get the others hands off of him.

"Oh my god are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?", he asks worriedly, reaching out to touch the others nose only to pull back, afraid of making it worse. This is why he feels like an utter flop in the social department, he isn't very good with timing, people or physical contact, but the sight of the elder hiding his face and then pulling a tongue at him has him giggling. Somehow, he doesn’t feel quiet so bad after that. Jackson is pretty good at, it seems, and he feels less inept around him, even if he knows its just because the other has to show him around.

"I'm fiiine, don’t worry about me," the elder says lightly, continuing to walk as Joshua fixes his own clothes, the both of them keeping pace with one another.

Oh what a sight they must be, Joshua realizes as they walk, listening to Jacksons quiet humming. Jackson, a well built, toned boy with a bright head of hair and a menagerie of temporary tattoos all over him, and himself, a skinny boy in a sweater with perfect posture and a soft look of interest in his surroundings--they look like opposites, to some extent. It makes him self-conscious, being next to someone so pretty when he is just...not.

"Well, sense you never guessed where we are going, your just going to have to follow me," Jackson shatters his thoughts with those word and the sight of the smaller man starting to run. Joshua has no clue where he is or even which direction the campus is in, so he has no choice but to follow Jackson, long legs keeping the other in sight, even as he turns two more corners only to come to a halt in front of a big white building. His narrow chest is heaving after almost fifteen minutes of running, something he could normally handle, but not with the almost two full days without sleep and no food in more than twenty four hours. It takes a minute of breathing slowly with his hand on his chest for him to get back to normal, Jackson standing patiently at his side and blessedly not rubbing his back or anything like that.

"Here we are!"

Joshua looks up finally, finding that they are at a dance studio, a cute little one with posters advertising kids classes on the glass doors and big windows showing off one of the practice rooms to the people walking by on the streets. The room is empty at the moment, and he sees their reflections right in that front window, his dark hair miraculously not too messed up and the marvelous Jackson at his side, arms high in the air with a proud smile on his lips.

"What is 'here'?", he asks, wondering about the significance of the place as he is led inside, through the glass doors and past a desk with a name on it-- Kim Yugyeom. It's a clean little place, at least is seems little, but it's almost three stories of dance rooms from what he saw out front.

"'Here' is a dance studio. 'Here' is also my place of employment. If you ever need anything at all, you can either call me or come here and get ahold of me."

His lips founder for a response, trying to figure out what to say in response and eventually giving a small, "Okay," even though he probably won't take the other up on his offer. He doesn’t want to interrupt Jackson's life with whatever things he finds he does need help with, the guy had already been so nice to him he would hate do disturb him. That’s what the internet is for though, right? So you don’t disturb other people.

He doesn’t even realize that they are still walking until music starts to filter out of one of the rooms on what seems to be the second floor, louder than the other songs and beats that can be heard from near by rooms, and he realizes Jackson is leading him in that direction. The song is one he knows well, a Japanese song from a Kpop group another of his friends is a fan of, Monsta X or something like that. On instinct, he starts mumbling along with the lyrics, remembering the way his friend Angelina always got so hyped about their comebacks and made him translate the songs for her.

"You know this song?", Jackson asks, pausing in front of a door from which the music seems to be emanating, curiosity clear on his face. In a moment of silliness and bravery, he starts full blown singing along, grinning for a moment and then going red at his audacity. Oh god, why couldn't you just say yes? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Yeah, my friend is a fan of their music," he explains quietly, scratching the back of his neck shyly and then asking, "What are we doing here?"

"I wanted to check on my friend Bambam before I take you home, if that’s okay," the blonde says sheepishly, cracking open the door and holding it so that they can both see into the room.

In all honesty, Joshua doesn’t mind, especially after he sees the boy in the room, dancing his heart out. He's tall and skinny, a head of shiny black hair bouncing with every step and spin and movement, seemingly lost in his music in a way that is just so beautiful to him. That’s not the only beautiful thing about the sight though-- the boy dancing is just stunning. Even with puffing breaths and red cheeks, he would be considered close to art, with plump lips, a straight nose and high cheekbones. Bambam. It's a name that suits him, because he is right here and would definitely be noticed in a crowd.

"Bambam, like the Flintstones?", he asks, because while he likes the name, who the Hell would name their kid something like that?

"Well, I guess. His real name is something really hard to pronounce -- I'm not even going to try because it's painful how wrong I get it-- but it's a Thai thing. You have a couple names, and Bambam is his common one," Jackson explains in a whisper, continuing to watch the black boy dance with a saddened smile. He isn't sure what to think of the explanation, but takes what he can get, looking back at the dancing male for a little while before the door is closed.

"Poor kid-- he seemed so happy when we passed him earlier, but then again, I could just be going crazy," he blonde mumbles to himself, and Joshua knows better than to question it.

The rest of their walk is filled with soft humming from both parties, of the two songs they heard while watching Bambam dance and of other ones that each of them start and trail off with.

By the time he is home and has bid Jackson goodbye with a phone number scrawled on the back of his hand in sharpie, he finds that he wants nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep for days on ends. What he wants and what he does are not quite the same, though. He showers, a cold one that doesn’t do much to wake him up other than make him shiver some as he steps out, and then he makes sure that his teeth are brushed, as well as that he has said good night to his mother, not yet aware of how big their time difference is.

After that, he prays and crawls into bed. It smells like a weird mix of Los Angeles salt air and all the spices that seem to litter every corner of South Korea. He falls asleep thinking about how he is going to catch up with classes the next day, or whenever he wakes up.


	11. An apology, not an actual chapter

So uhhhhh nothing much to say on my extended absence other than that I will soon return from it and maybe try and finish this story and my other one up. Sorry this isn't an actual chapter. 

 

UHHHHHHH nothing else to say, so byeeee


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